


In Absentia

by Xzeihoranth



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-03-02 22:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 54,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2828225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xzeihoranth/pseuds/Xzeihoranth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth's plan for revenge goes beautifully astray, and in the end, she has nothing to complain about.<br/>Mostly another Burial at Sea rewrite, because let's face it we kinda need 'em, with some hints of other stuff throughout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Job

It's a dark and stormy night, on the surface anyway. In Rapture, it's much like any other night, despite the fact it's Christmas Eve. Though the city has no official religion, its founder Andrew Ryan states "I have said in the past that I believe in no God. That remains true. And yet I also believe that the people of this city, indeed the people of  _all_  cities, are at their finest with as little interference on the part of government as possible. All of Rapture's residents are free to worship whomever and however they see fit, in the privacy of their own homes." A few last-minute shoppers bustle back and forth, but most people are out late celebrating. There's a sense of electricity in the air, though that might just be the Plasmid that's got everyone talking, Electro Bolt.

A young woman makes her elegant way past The Satyr Lounge. In another life, she might have paid attention to the gossip about philosophy or compromise or Fontaine or what men  _really_ want. Now though, she has a job to do, and a job to offer. A job he won't be able to resist. She heads up a curving flight of stairs to a virtually unmarked door tucked away at the top. She fumbles in her pocket for a purloined package of cigarettes. She pulls one out and places it between her fingers. That, at least, comes easily.  _I'm as ready as I'll ever be_ , she thinks to herself and knocks upon the door.

"We're not open" is the response, quicker and more coherent than she's been led to expect. She knocks again. "Go away." His voice is painfully familiar with its sudden terseness. She tries the handle. Locked. As anticipated. She can soon take care of that.

A moment later, it opens. She hears the click of a safety being thumbed off in the darkness in front of her. "What's the matter, you deaf or somethin'?" the man asks. "I said we're not open." She knows it's only a show; even Rapture has laws against murder.

"I have a job, Mister..." She pretends to read the name upon the door. "DeWitt. A job I think you're preeminently qualified for."

"This ain't the kind of night for a job." DeWitt says. "Come back in the mornin'. Or better yet don't come back at all." She can dimly make out his shape. He's leaning back in his chair, a Mauser C96 pointed casually in her direction.

"It seems we've gotten off on the wrong foot." She strolls on over to the window. He swivels to watch her. She notices that the blinds have been drawn for a while. There's a thin layer of dust visible on the slats at eye level. "What do you say we start over with a light?" She holds her cigarette out to him.

He snorts. "Awfully eager to make my acquaintance, miss...?" She's silent until he sighs and sets the pistol down on the desk and leans forward. With a snap, his first two fingers are alight, which doesn't bother him in the slightest. He casually touches them to the tip of her cigarette, and her eyes seem to gleam as the fire takes hold.

"Elizabeth." she says, taking a drag upon the cigarette. It's her turn to sigh now, as she breathes the smoke in his direction. "You can call me Elizabeth."

"Is that it?" he asks. She's silent again. "All right. What kind of job brings a girl like you round so late at night?"

She draws something else from her pocket. A picture. "You know this girl?"

DeWitt takes it. "Knew her. Past tense. She's dead."

"What if I told you she wasn't?"

He hands it back to her. "I'd say you're a damn liar." he replies coolly.

She motions for him to keep it. "Maybe. Not this time though." She takes another drag. "How did you know her?"

"That's my affair. How'd  _you_  know her?"

"That's MY affair." she shoots back.

DeWitt sighs. "Well that's not gettin' us anywhere. Give it to me straight, 'Elizabeth'. What do you want?"

"I want the girl. I'm prepared to pay for your help in finding her. Double your usual rate. Time is money, as they say."

"What's the catch?"

She gestures towards the ceiling.  _"There may be trouble ahead..."_  Sinatra sings.  _"But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance..."_ She saunters toward the door. _"Let's face the music and dance."_  And with that, his mind's made up.

* * *

She waits for him outside. She leans against the railing, her back to the large port-glass window. Even the residents haven't gotten used to the view, but to her it's just another cage.

DeWitt comes out less than a minute later, wearing a tan trenchcoat and fedora. It's repellent how hard he's trying to fit in, but she keeps her face carefully neutral. "Where shall we start?" she asks.

"You don't got any leads?" he asks, his hands in his pockets. She can tell how much he's craving a cigarette. Why doesn't he just  _ask_  for one?

"If I had any leads, do you think I would have bothered to hire you?" She continues without waiting for a reply. "You're the detective. I expect you to do some detecting."

He grimaces. "Playing dumb don't suit you." he says. Instantly she's on her guard. Like her, however, he moves on quickly. "'fore we get started, how 'bout somethin' to drink? There's a little place down the street I used to go to-"

"Used to?"

"Yeah. Used to. Wouldn't mind one last visit."

"I don't drink."

"You're kidding."

"No Mr DeWitt. No I am not."

"Well, suit yourself. I'm still going." He heads off down the staircase. She follows at a respectable distance.

A whale swims past the window. DeWitt and Elizabeth can't help but overhear a snatch of conversation as they pass by two women in matching red dresses who are looking out at the creature. "Do you suppose they can see us?" one asks.

"Probably."

"What must they think?"

"Very little, I imagine. Whales are  _dread_ fully dull. They swim around and eat plankton! What kind of a life is that?"

"Doesn't seem to be doing that one any harm. If anything he looks like he's healthier than you."

"Oh, what nonsense. I'd rather eat meat and die young than live to be a hundred and fifty living off PLANTS!"

The little place turns out to be a division of Sinclair Spirits. There are only two other people there, not including the bartender, who looks up as Elizabeth and her escort pass through the curtain. "Glass of Arcadia Merlot." DeWitt tells him. The bartender nods and moves away to the shelf full of different bottles of wine. DeWitt sits down at the bar. Elizabeth sits down next to him. "How come you don't drink?" DeWitt asks idly.

"My father was an alcoholic. Among other things." Elizabeth puts the dying cigarette back in her mouth while she searches for another one. "I consider myself lucky I never acquired the habit."

DeWitt nods. He doesn't tell her of his own history with the stuff, though he's unaware she already knows. "But you smoke." he says after a while. "Smokin's worse than drinkin'."

"If we're going to compare vices, you might at least fill me in on some of yours. Doesn't seem fair otherwise." She gestures for an ashtray, which is soon supplied, and grinds her first cigarette into it for a moment before lighting a second.

"Rapture's not about bein' fair. It's about stayin' on top." The bartender returns with the drink. "Cheers." DeWitt puts some money on the countertop.

The man places it somewhere below. He seems to be in a good mood, as he hangs around to chat. "Ryan's a big fish in an awful small pond, you ask me!" he says, apropos of nothing.

"Anything you say, pal." DeWitt takes a sip of the Merlot.

"If I was running things, I'd say, 'Why just one city? Why not two? Hey, why not three?'" This prompts a spirited debate between the bartender and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is allegedly of the opinion that Ryan is best suited by making sure one city is in order and capable of self-sufficiency before considering others, while the bartender declares his idea to be the true way of demonstrating support for the Great Chain, making the unspoken assumption that the people of each city would be capable of supporting themselves and would not need a Central Council to make all their decisions for them. DeWitt maintains silent neutrality throughout the debate, nursing his glass and grunting whenever one of them tries to gain his support. Eventually the bartender moves off, frustrated by Elizabeth's calm but relentless insistence.

DeWitt tosses back the last of his wine in one gulp. He gestures to Elizabeth. As he turns to go, his eyes pass over one of the posters of missing children that are scattered around the establishment. The wine and the many puzzles his partner poses dull his senses long enough so he doesn't begin to put the pieces together until they're about to pass by the Little Wonders Educational Facility. He spies a group of girls in two single file lines outside and slows to a stop. They turn to look at him, almost in unison. There's something unnatural about the way they stand at attention, made all the worse by their garish face paint. "Mister DeWitt." Elizabeth says from his side. She conceals her own emotions admirably. "It doesn't do to stare at the Little Sisters." she tells him. He frowns and starts walking, edging past their black-clad teacher, who pays him no mind.

Once they're out of earshot, he mutters, "Those girls can't be more 'n' 8 years old. Kids that age should be runnin' around makin' life miserable f'r their parents. Not whatever the hell that was."

"Without Andrew Ryan, those girls would be out on the street. At least in there they get fed." Elizabeth replies, keeping her true feelings on the matter well hidden once again.

"Get fed what?" DeWitt asks darkly. "The things I've heard go on in there..." But he cuts himself off as they move past another small crowd of people. As if to add insult to injury, the intercom chimes in with a public service announcement:  _Rumor is the tool of the Parasite. Fontaine is dead; Rapture lives._ "You see all those posters in the bar?" DeWitt asks. "Makes me wonder just how many 'orphans' Ryan's boys are actually pickin' up."

"If you want to ask him yourself, I've heard he might be at a party up on High Street a little later." Elizabeth says.

"Is that so? Maybe he wouldn't mind answerin' a couple questions... Elevator's a ways ahead. Let's see if we c'n figure out where this party's going t' be."


	2. The Search Begins

DeWitt looks back. Elizabeth has stopped and is staring at the worker outside like she's seeing a ghost. Though given the 'quirks' of ADAM, perhaps she is. "Everything okay?" DeWitt starts to ask. She blinks. "Hey! Elizabeth!" he calls. Her head turns in his direction. For a moment, he thinks she's about to smile. Then the moment passes, and he notices a thin line of blood running down her face from her nose. "Your nose is bleedin'." he tells her.

"What?" She touches her fingers to a nostril. It's only then that he notices she's missing a pinkie. "It's nothing." she says before he has a chance to comment on it. "Let's move on."

"Fine with me." He waits for her to catch up before he asks her, "You want to wash it off?"

"I imagine people would stare if I walked about with blood on my face." she admits.

"They'd probably stare either way. There's a public restroom up the stairs in the Andalusian Arms. You'll have to go in by yourself; management's not too keen on me there anymore."

"I can handle myself Mr DeWitt." she says. Nevertheless, he escorts her through the front door. The bellhop holds up a warning hand.

"Got some nerve showing your face round here pal." he says. Elizabeth walks past him unhindered.

"Just makin' sure the lady gets where she wants t' go." DeWitt responds evenly. He leans back against the reception desk, ignoring the bellhop's suspicious glare. A few minutes later, Elizabeth returns. The blood on her hand and face is gone, as is her second cigarette. She walks past him without even looking in his direction. He stands up and follows her.

She pushes the button to call the elevator, and seems relieved when the door opens almost immediately. They step inside and she folds her arms, leaving it to him to press the button to take them to the High Street. DeWitt attempts to make small talk as the elevator starts its ascent. "So, what part of town you from?" he asks.

"Mercury Suites." Elizabeth lies.

DeWitt whistles. "That explains why I haven't seen you 'round before." A sharp stabbing pain suddenly cuts through his head. His vision goes gray and fuzzy. He sees hands,  _his_  hands, clutching a bowl of water, and then...

"Mr DeWitt." The strange woman's voice comes to him from a long way away. "Is something the matter?"

He looks up at her. A long way up. He must've fallen to his hands and knees this time. "I'm fine." he tells her. "I get these...flashes sometimes... Think I oughta slow down on the splicin'." Her face is unreadable, but she allows him to get back on his feet without further comment. By the time the doors open, it's almost as if nothing had happened.

A waiter is there to greet them. "Refreshment sir?" he asks.

DeWitt shakes his head. "Better not."

The waiter looks to Elizabeth. "Madam?"

"Thank you, no." Elizabeth says. The waiter disappears in a cloud of red. He reappears a few steps away, creating cool mist inside a customer's glass, then disappears again, only to show up behind the bar to light someone's cigarette with his fingers the same way DeWitt had done.

"It ain't real teleportation." DeWitt explains as he and Elizabeth make their way through the lower level of the establishment. "Just looks like it. They're invisible, is all."

"How do you know?"

"One of 'em tried to jump me a couple of months ago. Junkie. Wasn't as sneaky as he thought he was; forgot to take his boots off. I waited til he used it, then I punched him in the face."

"Very observant. I can see how you found your calling as a detective."

As DeWitt leaves Le Temps Perdu, he's struck with the sudden realization of just how monumental a task he's undertaken. Finding one little girl in the whole of Rapture looks increasingly like sheer and utter folly. He takes the photo from his pocket and stares at it, forcing himself to remember everything he can about her. "First things first." he says, as much for his own benefit as for Elizabeth's. "If livin' in Rapture's taught me anything, it's that if you want answers, you go straight to the top. Let's find out about that party Andrew Ryan's going t' be at."

"One of the shopkeepers might know something." Elizabeth suggests.

"Good thinking. Let's start with Mister Schmidt. We have a...longstanding arrangement."

Herr Schmidt, however, doesn't know anything about Ryan's supposed party. Neither does the proprietor of Le Marquis D'Epoque, one Winston Hoffner, who does however comment on not having had the 'pleasure' of DeWitt's company for a very long time. Elizabeth frowns at this, and, when DeWitt asks her why, conceals the real reason by feigning snobbery at the name. "The literal translation just serves to confuse people who might actually speak French. A better name would be something along the lines of 'L'homme Moderne'."

"Huh. Never imagined you'd be interested in France."

"I must admit I've never been. Not  _really_. Maybe one day..." She looks back at him. "Where should we go next?"

DeWitt rubs his chin thoughtfully. "The Watched Clock's usually a good place to pick up on the gossip. If that doesn't work, we could try a couple of the high-brow places: Artist's Struggle or Rapture Records..."

"What about that Cohen character?" Elizabeth asks. There's a sign for his local club off to the left, along with a group of interpretative dancers on illuminated pedestals out in front.  _That nutjob's never been much for subtlety,_  DeWitt thinks.

Aloud, he says, "Best if we keep someone like you as far away from him as possible. The last thing we'd need is for him to take a shine to you."

"Stranger things have happened. I guess The Watched Clock it is." They take a detour off of High Street itself and turn into a side passage that leads to a surprisingly spacious diner. The interior is beautifully lit and decorated. Even at this late hour, there are a handful of other patrons scattered about, none of whom pay much attention to the newcomers. The owner looks up from wiping down the counter.

"Evening folks. What can I get ya?"

DeWitt opens his mouth to say something, but Elizabeth interrupts. "A plate of bread and cheese will be fine." she says.

"Sure." the man says. "And for you?" he asks DeWitt.

"Box of crackers." DeWitt replies, the shrug not evident as much in his body as in his voice.

"Coming right up." The man heads back into the kitchen while DeWitt and Elizabeth take a seat in one of the empty booths. A pleasant little instrumental jazz number from the radio behind them drifts throughout the room, while the smell of meat being cooked on the stove wafts in from the kitchen. Elizabeth looks at anything and everything except the man sitting across from her. She notes the lesbian couple who seem to know and love the music being played, and her mind takes her back to Columbia and Daisy Fitzroy, and the secret one of the doors had imparted to her about the erstwhile leader of the Vox Populi. Daisy died during the six months of hell Elizabeth had been made to endure. The doctors said she'd personally led an assault on Comstock House, but had only managed to launch a few salvos from the zeppelin she'd commandeered before Songbird ripped it to shreds.

Elizabeth doesn't feel like eating any more.

When the waiter returns with their food, DeWitt and Elizabeth both thank him, but they're promptly distracted upon hearing the words 'Andrew Ryan' somewhere in the diner. Casually, they look out of the corners of their eyes until they locate the speaker: a middle-aged brown-haired man wearing glasses. They probably wouldn't be able to pick him out of a crowd; Rapture's full of men like him; but what he's saying proves more interesting than his appearance. He's standing next to a booth with two women in it. From the way they're holding themselves, he seems to be a friend. "I can't be _lieve_  he's hosting that party at Sander Cohen's. Man gives me the shivers." he's saying.

"He's harmless!" one of the women responds. "An eccentric! Rapture's full of guys like him!"

"Harmless as long as you don't diss his music. Or his 'humanitarian work'. Or his painting. Or his sculptures-"

"Give it a rest Phil! I don't believe a single thing that comes out of those parties. They're simply jealous he didn't offer to paint THEM instead!"

DeWitt sighs as he pries open his box of crackers. "Figures he'd set up at Cohen's. Couldn't have been somewhere down on Market Street or even in Fort Frolic, oh no; he gotta show the upper-crust there's nothin' t' be afraid of."

"I don't suppose we could just walk over and knock on the door." Elizabeth muses. "There's bound to be some kind of dress code..."

"I doubt the detective look's gonna go over well in a place like that." DeWitt says. "Well, cross that bridge when we get to it." He leaves some money for the bill on the table, plus a little extra as a tip. Elizabeth slips the last of her cheese into what's left of the bread to make an impromptu sandwich and hurries to catch up.


	3. Expected Company

DeWitt and Elizabeth loiter outside Le Temps Perdu while they finish their meal. Elizabeth finishes hers first, wiping her mouth clean of crumbs with a handkerchief DeWitt offers her. "Do you have a plan?" she asks.

"Yeah. Walk up to the door, show 'em my license and ask if they'll let me in." DeWitt replies between bites of crackers. Elizabeth does not seem amused. "What?" he says. "It's worked for me so far."

"Everybody's luck runs out eventually, Mr DeWitt." she says coolly. "Let's hope yours holds out a little longer."

Suddenly DeWitt's not very hungry either. He throws away the rest of the crackers, remembering all too well what happened the last time he'd felt lucky. Without another word, he heads off to The Garden of the Muses, Elizabeth hot on his heels. He knocks four times on the surprisingly inelegant steel door in front. The grate slides open. "What do you want?" the doorman barks.

"Name's DeWitt." DeWitt holds up his license for the doorman's inspection. "Booker DeWitt. I'm a private investigator; heard Andrew Ryan's gonna be in the neighborhood. We just have a couple questions for him."

"Questions?" the doorman asks. Unseen eyes glide over to Elizabeth. His laughter stops as soon as it had started. "Ohh. You must be the muses Mr Cohen spoke about. One moment..." The grate slams shut.

"'Muses'?" Elizabeth says in shock.

DeWitt turns to look at her. "Son of a bitch knew we were comin'. But how?"

"I'm not sure I like that we're expected by someone of Sander Cohen's 'standing'." Elizabeth says. Though her voice and posture are unchanged, there's an element of worry in her face for the first time all evening.

The grate clangs open again. "Mr Cohen will be delighted to see you." the doorman says smoothly.

"What about Mr Ryan?" Elizabeth interjects.

"You'll get what's coming to you." the doorman laughs. Elizabeth toys with the stub of her missing finger as the door opens. They're immediately blinded by the light that rushes out to meet them. Slowly, their eyes become accustomed to the brightness, and they step over the threshold into a room of painful, almost antiseptic, white. Elizabeth's skirt and hair make her stand out even more than she normally would. Silently, DeWitt follows her. They move across the room until they come to a halt before a man in a white suit and bunny mask. He in turn steps down from a sculpture of a white hand rising out of the floor, upon which he had been standing like it had grabbed him and refused to let him go, and taps four rhythmic taps upon another door. The door slides up to reveal a grey stone floor and grey stone walls that seem to disappear only a few paces in. The man gestures silently, and Elizabeth steps inside. DeWitt does as well, but almost instantly loses sight of her in the darkness. He feels his way forward, inch by inch, until a large neon light in the shape of a bunny mask ( _what is it with this freak and bunny masks?_  DeWitt wonders to himself) reveals the outline of her figure. Her arms are crossed, as if he's kept her waiting. As he comes closer, he realizes that it isn't the light that's in the shape of a mask, it's the  _tunnel_. A third door is opening in the distance, and DeWitt can already feel his patience with Cohen's 'quirks' ebbing away.

They step out onto a landing. The shadow of a man and a woman can be seen on the wall directly in front of them, wearing masks in the shape of the crescent moon and radiant sun and engaging in a waltz somewhere close by. DeWitt edges around a pair of albino rabbits on the ground and sees a staircase off to his right. He motions for Elizabeth to follow.

As they make their way through the crowd and down the stairs, Cohen's voice drifts up from below, exhorting his dancers to the bizarre accompaniment of an accordion. "That's right, that's right... Be the conduit! Open yourselves to the music! To the spirit of the eternal!"

When Elizabeth and her escort reach the bottom of the staircase, something goes wrong. The accordion stops abruptly, and Cohen becomes enraged. "No! No!" he bellows. "If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times-"

The male dancer interrupts. "You haven't told us anything!" he says.

"That's right!" his partner agrees.

But Cohen is already shaking his head. "I don't want to hear any more about it! You're fired!" He looks up. "Hector!"

"For god's sake Cohen-" Their protests are cut off by a hundred watt voltage surging through the cables attached to them. They arch their backs in agony while Elizabeth gasps in barely-concealed horror. DeWitt looks over, already reaching for his Mauser, but she doesn't seem to be in immediate danger. Her eyes are wide and terrified, unable to look away from the gruesome spectacle. After what seems like an eternity, the dancers droop lifelessly in their harnesses as the electric current subsides.

The unconscious couple are hoisted away out of sight (unconscious, or worse), but Cohen is already looking away. "Who's that?" he asks, peering around the different layers of the room at the masked onlookers. "Is it someone new?"

A woman in a pitch-black velvet dress speaks up. "It was her!" she says, somehow indicating Elizabeth without raising so much as a finger. Others chime in in agreement, going with the flow. DeWitt attempts to ward them away by putting a hand between Elizabeth and the crowd.  _There's too many of 'em,_  he thinks to himself. He reaches for his pistol again. His finger has just curled in around the trigger when Sander Cohen finally says something.

"Ahh. The REAL stars have arrived." he purrs. "Come closer. I won't bite..."

Against his better judgement, DeWitt does so. The noise of the crowd fades away. He leaves Elizabeth a few steps behind; though he may not trust her entirely, something in the way she's conducted herself up until now tells him she can  _certainly_  take care of herself. She watches his conversation with Sander Cohen, though her poise is still clearly shaken. "We're lookin' for Mr Ryan...?" DeWitt says.

Cohen chuckles. "What made you think he'd be here?" he replies.

"Word on the street is he'd be attending one of your usual shindigs here tonight. For your sake, I hope it wasn't this one." DeWitt makes sure to stand well clear of the cables on the ground.

"There's nothing illegal going on here, detective." Cohen's voice is as wheedling as it is patently fake. "I was in here, painting a scene out of  _memory_ , when the two of you showed up and started asking questions." His unctuous tone begins to fade. "It's our word against yours. Do you think Andrew Ryan would believe a drunken busybody over an artist?"

Elizabeth comes forward to stand at DeWitt's side. "Your 'proclivities' are well-known." she says calmly. "All it would take is the right word in the right ear for your adoring public to turn against you."

A smile stretches across Sander Cohen's face. "I was wondering when you'd show up." he murmurs. "I saw your face in a dream. There may not have been as much  _blood_  on it then, but dreams are unpredictable little rascals..." Elizabeth reaches up, but Cohen is there first. He wipes away the blood from under her nose with the backs of his fingers. DeWitt's spine crawls. Cohen stands up straight. "What business brought you to see me?" he asks suddenly.

"We didn't come here to see you." DeWitt says gruffly. "We came here for Ryan."

But Elizabeth is already holding out the photo. "She did."

"How did you-" He's  _sure_  it had been in his pocket a couple minutes ago...

"I'm a woman of many talents." she replies. "I also found this." She shows him a porcelain doll head.

"Give that back." DeWitt growls.

"May I?" Cohen reaches for it, but Elizabeth pulls it away. She allows him to examine it, while maintaining her grip. "Yes...yes, I seem to remember... She was important to you, was she not?" DeWitt doesn't answer him. "And you thought Andrew Ryan would know where she is. Did you think he kidnapped her himself?" He chuckles.

"We never said she was kidnapped." Elizabeth says, putting her hands on her hips.

"But it's what you had envisioned." Cohen returns without missing a beat. "Imagination can be a dangerous thing if you're not prepared for it." He gestures for Elizabeth to take the photo and the doll's head away. "Her whereabouts may become known to me. I can make...inquiries..."

"And what would you expect from us in return?" Elizabeth asks. She passes both of her discoveries back to DeWitt.

"Oh, aren't you the clever one." Cohen murmurs again. "My request is simple: a dance. Nothing more, nothing less."


	4. Dance Into The Dark

"A dance?" DeWitt asks in disbelief. "Look, whatever you an' your entourage get up to down here's between you an' god, for now anyways. But she ain't that kinda girl."

Sander Cohen smiles disarmingly, but it's Elizabeth who speaks. "Mr DeWitt." Everyone who isn't already looking at her turns to look at her. She holds out her hand. "Dance with me." It's not a request, it's a  _command_ , and he does as he is told.

"Why are you doing this?" DeWitt mutters under Cohen's exultations.

"I wish to see you reconciled." Elizabeth says. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"You got a look in your eye says you don't put much faith in reconciliation."

("Let your conscious state of mind drift away. Rid yourself of the artifice of everyday existence, and show us who you  _really are_.")

Her eyes soften, like she's seeing something or someone that isn't there. "Maybe...maybe I'm looking for a reason to believe." she murmurs.

He's silent, waiting for an explanation that may never come. The whole room is silent, even Cohen, who's taken by the muse more intensely than he can remember being taken in a long long time, and his memory goes back ages, back to New York and Elgar Vankin and Mimi Tabor and wasn't that who he just had electrocuted? Fancy  _them_  of all people letting him down. Not like these two; he's been DREAMING of these two. Mama always said he had a knack for seeing things; his whole life has been dedicated to proving her right, and now here these two are, these...two...

"You're free to go if you wish." Cohen says abruptly. "But do drop in again any time."

DeWitt lets go of Elizabeth's hands. Pleasant though the experience has been, he's eager to step off the poisonous metal coils. "Go where?" he asks. Has Cohen 'forgotten' their arrangement so soon?

Cohen doesn't look up from his canvas. "Oh yes, of course. Forgive my forgetfulness!" he chuckles. "These men will take you where you need to go."

Three large men that would have resembled bouncers if not for their skimpy attire appear out of nowhere and quickly bundle burlap sacks over DeWitt and Elizabeth's heads. "The hell are you doin'?" DeWitt asks sharply, struggling to get free. A powerful hand closes around one of his wrists, and he decides to stop struggling. Elizabeth accepts her situation with more outward poise. Her anger is more resigned than DeWitt's, though hardly less palpable. The brutes set off through the club, steering their charges deftly, though forcefully, between the curious onlookers.

"Where are you taking us?" Elizabeth asks, though of course she already knows.

"It's a secret innit?" one of the men says. "'at's why y've got the bags over yer heads."

"I thought it was to pretty up the view." one of the other men says. He and the first man share a laugh over that until the third man speaks up.

"Shut up." he growls. "There'll be time for talk once we get these two on their way."

"Oooh, I don't envy you mate." the first man says, nudging Booker with an elbow. "I seen all kinds o' whackjobs down here, but those 'uns take the cake!"

"It wos s'posed t' be a surprise, dipshit!" the second man groans. It seems as though an argument is about to break out until the third man says 'shut up' again in a tone of voice that brooks no arguing. The hands around DeWitt and Elizabeth's wrists loosen as their owners are taken some distance away and given a stern talking-to by the third man. The duo entertain separate though similarly timed notions of taking the bags off and running, but they have different reasons for not going through with it.

"Elizabeth." DeWitt says quietly, not sure where she is. "You all right?"

Her voice comes to him somewhere from his right. "Fine, though I'm...surprised that you care." Nothing is going according to plan...

"I just want t' get paid, that's all." he lies. He could take or leave the money at this point; the opportunity for closure is  _far_  more appealing.

"Right." Their escort returns, grunting and mumbling angrily, and gives them a shove to get them moving. The ambience of Cohen's club has faded away above and behind them. Now all there is to hear is the sound of Rapture's lower levels: the machinery that helps keep the people above in the lap of luxury. Geothermal generators down in Hephaestus supply power to the whole of the city straight from the core of the planet. DeWitt doesn't know how it all works exactly; he's just thankful that it does, when he remembers to be. which is usually right after it stops. Power outages, though minimal, are not unheard of; even in a 'city of the future', as some of its more dramatic inhabitants have taken to calling it, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

A door opens. "'ere y'are." one of the men says, and DeWitt registers the familiar squeaking of the handle of a bathysphere being turned.

"What's going on?" he asks. "I thought we had a deal!" He starts to struggle again.

"Cut it out." Someone whacks him on the back of the head, none too gently. He stumbles to his knees. Even through the burlap sack, he can see stars...

* * *

" _The field's rather unstable."_

" _It's fine, hurry!"_

" _'Fine?' Are you mad?!"_

" _No! You will not get caught between, come!"_

" _It is comfortable enough as it is!"_

" _It's going to be more uncomfortable if you don't come now!"_

" _If I don't get caught, it's going to be a very long time before we see each other."_

" _You will not get caught, I promise!"_

" _You can't promise me that!"_

" _We're going to lose our window!"_

" _I'll wait, thank you!"_

" _GIVE ME BACK MY DAUGHTER!"_

"Mr DeWitt! Mr DeWitt!"

He opens his eyes. It takes a great deal of effort. A pale and curious face swims into focus. "Ugh..." he groans. "How long was I out?"

"Long enough." Elizabeth gestures out the window. "Take a look."

He gets to his feet. They're headed out of the city. But where? An ad for the ever-present Hotel Monseñor goes past as he struggles to clear his head. Another ad, this one for the Rapture Zoo. He's always meant to go, but never found the time... Elizabeth speaks up again. "You kept saying her name; Sally..."

"I know." DeWitt says wearily. "I-" But a nearby radio suddenly whines into life. The voice that comes out is as familiar to Mr DeWitt as just about anything else.

"When the central computer alerted me to a transit request from a disused transport bay, I was prepared to tell security to blow the offending bathysphere into a thousand tiny fragments. I was even more prepared when it calculated your destination in the very next instant. But, from the information I've acquired, that would be doing you a favor wouldn't it?"

DeWitt raises his eyebrows. "Well ain't this a surprise." He reaches for the radio and begins speaking into it. "When the girl said you were havin' a party, I thought we'd have to climb all the way up to beg an audience. Didn't figure you'd demean yourself by comin' down and speakin' to us directly."

"Make no mistake, Booker DeWitt; this communication will not extend both ways." Andrew Ryan says. "The standard issue short-wave transceiver your bathysphere was equipped with is incapable of responding to this broadcast. I have no desire to hear whatever excuses you might be in the process of making. Instead I will say only this: The girl you're looking for is dead. Nothing you can say or do will change the facts, and any attempts to the contrary will most certainly end in pain." DeWitt rolls his eyes. "Now, as for your 'companion'... I have no record of her setting foot in this city before September of this year, at which point Rapture was no longer accepting immigrants. I'm sure I don't need to remind you why that was an especially auspicious month for all of us. Your sense of timing is either very poor or remarkably good, young lady. If you persist in this endeavor, I would advise you be on your guard. The 'splicers' may not be the most dangerous element down there..."

The radio goes dead. The atmosphere in the bathysphere is chilly like the ocean outside as it descends into the depths.


	5. Touchdown

"Who was she?" Elizabeth asks after a while.

"Orphan." DeWitt responds. "Rapture's full of 'em, these days more than most."

"Why her?"

"I don't know. You got a reason for every damnfool thing you've ever done?" He feels the urge to explain. Elizabeth's gaze is steady and unflinching. "She'd come up to you with these big blue eyes you couldn't say no to..."

"And you lost her."

"Yeah. I lost her. More important question is, what is she to you?" he asks. She turns away and is saved from having to come up with a response when a large building hovers into view on the edge of the searchlights.

"What IS that?" Elizabeth asks.

"Must be the old Fontaine department store. Always wondered what happened. Y' could never miss it; only building in the whole of Rapture that had eyes on the outside as well as on the inside." DeWitt says. The peak of the building is crowned by an ominous sculpture of Poseidon's head, lit with an eerie green pseudophosphorescent glow by the neon lights inside.

"What's it doing all the way out here?"

"Beats me. Andrew Ryan said something about splicers. Guess we're gonna find out what happened t' all those 'monstrosities' the Tribune wouldn't stop goin' on about."

The bathysphere pulls into one of the docks and begins to rise as Elizabeth says, "I guess I should stay close then."

"Maybe. Depends how good a shot y' are." DeWitt reaches into his coat and brings out his Mauser. He debates whether or not he should offer it to her.

Her eyes lock onto it. It would be so easy to take it from him and bring him the end he so richly deserves, but... no. He has to remember what he's done, the way her father had. Her hands are shaking. Why is nothing turning out the way she thought it would? She  _could_  look and see, but her body is barely holding itself together as it is.  _Just a little longer,_  she tries to tell herself.  _Just a little more and then you can rest._

The bathysphere comes to a stop at the top of the tunnel. The door swings open to reveal a room drenched in gloom and standing puddles of seawater. "Sorry about the shoes." DeWitt says preemptorily to Elizabeth as he steps out. She wrinkles her nose at the stench, but follows his lead. The overhead lights have long since burned out, though a couple of the signs and products on display are occasionally illuminated by their respective spotlights. DeWitt passes over the room once, having decided against entrusting his sidearm to Elizabeth. Seeing no trace of movement, he lowers it to his side, though he keeps an eye on the frozen corpse sitting on a nearby bench. "Looks as though we're clear." he says.

"There's no telling what we're going to find down here, Mr DeWitt." Elizabeth says, stepping carefully through the ankle-deep water. "It might behoove us to search for supplies."

"Good thinkin'." he says. As he bends down to look behind a countertop, she can hear him mutter 'behoove' under his breath sarcastically. She rolls her eyes.

"I got nothin'." he announces after a while.

"All I've found is some spare change." Elizabeth replies. She passes it to him. "There may be a few vending machines up and running." she suggests.

"Hmm. Best hope so." DeWitt hopes there'll be some more ammunition further in. He's only brought a couple magazines' worth...

They head up the steps in the back of the room. There's a buildup of ice to their left, though the staircase to the right is thankfully free. "That seem like a lot of ice to you?" DeWitt asks Elizabeth.

"If there was a burst pipe, you'd expect to see some of it trickling down to the lower level..." she muses in agreement.

"Yeah." He spots a blast of frost on a nearby wall and mutely puts two and two together. When they reach the top and round a corner, they're greeted by a large electrified gate. "'Closed by order of the Council.'" DeWitt reads aloud. "You gotta be kidding. Well that didn't last long. Shoulda seen it comin'-"

"Hold on." Elizabeth interrupts. She's gazing at, of all things, the light fixture  _above_  the gate. "I wonder..." DeWitt looks about impatiently while her mind continues to work. "We need to go back." she says at last.

"Back where?"

"Back to the docking station. I think I'll be able to make something that'll help us across." So, he follows her back to the docking station, where she promptly starts looking for something.

"You forget we already searched this place?" he asks.

Elizabeth pushes aside a grimy old mannequin and holds up a vacuum cleaner. "This will serve as the body of the device." she tells him. "We'll need a wrench, some brackets and bolts, some tape and some wire, a leather belt, and some sharp curved metal."

"You gonna at least tell me why?"

"My motto is 'show, don't tell.'" she replies. DeWitt frowns, but begins his search.

* * *

Some time later, he's found all that she'd 'asked' for. She spreads the items out on top of a workbench and begins to work. With nothing else to do, he watches her. He'd initially considered the prongs on the hatstand nearby, but discarded them on finding a Pneumo Bot on the upper level. The hooks they use to move along the Pneumo Lines embedded in the walls fit Elizabeth's description much better, and, to his satisfaction, it even has the rotor attached.

"You're good with yer hands." DeWitt tells her. He has trouble not staring at her missing pinkie, capped by a silver-grey thimble.

"I'm good with most things." she says in acknowledgement. "You could say I've been around."

"Not guns though?"

"No. Not guns."

"Mmm." He searches for something else to say. He wonders why he wants to keep her talking. Maybe to jog his memory... "I don't think I was tellin' the truth back in the elevator." he says slowly.

"What do you mean?" Her eyes are focused on her work.

"I don't know. You just seem...familiar." Pictures flash in front of his eyes once more.  _A city in the sky? Ridiculous. And yet... A statue of an angel. He knows he's seen it before, though its face is strangely blurred..."You're hurting her!"_

"Mr DeWitt?" Elizabeth is holding something out to him. "Where's the rest?" she asks.

"The rest...? I- That's all I found..." It's so much harder to focus...

"What do you mean, that's all?" She puts a hand on her hip, and rests the device against her shoulder, frowning at him.

"Those are all the...the parts..." It's hard to breathe now too...

"Wait here." she tells him. "I'll see if there's anything you missed." Her tone implies she doesn't find that hard to believe. DeWitt leans heavily against the workbench as she sloshes away through the puddles. It's times like this he's glad he quit smoking. If he hadn't, he'd probably be having a heart attack right now.

She comes back in a few minutes, looking even angrier than when she'd left. "Seems we'll have to throw it over the barricade for the other person's use." she admits.

DeWitt, almost recovered by this point, vehemently disagrees. "What if somethin' grabs you when I'm not there?" he points out.

"I said I can handle myself."

"An' what if yer lyin'? You been doin' a hell of a lot of that since you came into my office."

"Do you want me to  _prove_  it to you?" She puts her finger on the trigger of her contraption, and he remembers just how sharp those blades are.

"No, I just-" He thinks very hard about how best to phrase his next question. "Look. Way I see it, we can keep on arguing or we can settle this like civilized human beings."

"And how would that be?" Elizabeth asks, just as angry as before.

"I grab hold of the watchamacallit, an' you grab hold of me."

"What?" Her voice is colder than cold.

"Hear me out. I didn't see you find enough string t' make some kinda grapplin' hook outta that, so I'm guessin' it's got a sorta magnet inside, strong enough t' give whoever's holdin' it a boost up t' that light fixture you were starin' at. About right?" As he pauses for breath, DeWitt is gratified to see a look of grudging respect dawn on Elizabeth's face. "An' I don't think you're strong enough t' pick me up, so I gotta carry you. That's the only way I see this workin'."

Her face softens, but only a little. "I may have done you a disservice just then, Mr DeWitt; I beg your pardon." The words sound flat, even to him. "You're right, of course. We should get a move on." She gazes at him, her large blue eyes as implacable as the rest of her, until he heaves himself to his feet and heads back up the steps.

When they're at the gate once more, Elizabeth hands her device over to DeWitt. While he adjusts to the weight and feel of it against his arm, he asks, "You come up with a name for this thing?"

"I don't know. I hadn't given it much thought." she says with a shrug. "A...skyhook maybe?"

"Hm. Better than nothin'." He looks over at her. "Y' ready?"

"Give me a minute." She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, then nods. "Let's go." He wraps his free arm awkwardly around her waist, looks up and points the newly-christened skyhook at the light sconce and pulls the trigger.

He's pulled bodily off his feet, narrowly avoiding the electrified gate on his way up. The blades on the end nestle perfectly inside the ornamental chain that hangs from the light. He looks down as he feels Elizabeth shifting her weight up, trying to lift her feet away from the gate. He's about to ask if she's okay, when they hear voices coming from the tunnel on their right. "I want the frosty one! GET ME THE FROSTY ONE!"

"No! Come back! I want the frosty! Want it! Want it!"

Something emerges, too intent on fleeing to notice DeWitt or Elizabeth. It hurls a jagged ball of ice at a torrent of water gushing out of some broken pipes, freezing it solid and forming a bridge to the other side of a gaping hole in the ground behind the fence. It makes a mighty jump through the air and lands upon the bridge, and it's only then that the observers realize what they're looking at: a blue-skinned horrendously mutated  _man_  with crystal-like ice growths protruding from its body! Two other men appear, their own mutations thankfully covered by the boxes on their heads. The icy mutant freezes one of them as they leap down to pursue. The other manages to smack the projectile in two before it can hit him. The mutant flees through a door at the far end of the room, which closes swiftly behind it. Its lone animate pursuer pounds against the door, unaware of the electronic open switch to its right. The other one thaws out a few moments later and hobbles shiveringly over to its comrade, dragging its cudgel habitually against the ground. The first one turns upon hearing the noise. A struggle ensues.

Taking advantage of the commotion, DeWitt gets a firmer hold of Elizabeth's waist and jumps down to safety. His arm aches a little, but it'll calm down soon. "You okay?" he mutters quietly.

"Of course." she hisses. "You need to deal with those splicers before one of them spots us."

He decides to call her out on her lying to him again some other time (hard not to notice the way she keeps casting nervous glances at the electric fence), and advances across the bridge. The splicer that had been first to the door lies dead on the ground. His murderer crouches over him, rummaging through his pockets. "More lint, and more lint, and more lint... Why didn't you ever have your fucking suit cleaned?" he mutters. It's all too easy to take him by surprise: walk up behind him, jerk his head to the right and cut his throat with the skyhook in one clean move.

"Was there a need to be so brutal?" Elizabeth asks as she joins him.

"No sense wastin' ammo." DeWitt says, dropping the body to the floor, the better to frisk him. Nothing but more loose change. "Besides, he's an addict. Both of 'em are. I've seen enough of their kind to know there's no knockin' or talkin' sense into 'em."

She doesn't acknowledge his remark. Instead, she pushes the button. The door opens, revealing it to be an elevator. "Nowhere to go but up." she says. They step inside.


	6. Bloodshed

After DeWitt pushes the button to take them to the next level, there is a moment of silence. Elizabeth looks at him closely, and decides it's time to apply a little more pressure. "How long have you been in Rapture?" she asks.

"Couple years." he says. "Matter of fact, just goin' on ten. How 'bout yourself?" He remembers all too well what Andrew Ryan had said...

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." she replies, disappointed by how easily he'd answered her.

"Is that so?" He turns on her. Now it's his turn to be angry, barking question after question. "What's really going on down here anyway? What possible interest could you have in Sally?"

"My interest is not in Sally, Mr DeWitt, but in you." Her composure has returned. She matches his anger with icy calm, which by now is almost the norm for her. The elevator doors open. "We might want to save this discussion for later." Elizabeth murmurs. Someone can be heard holding a one-sided and very insane conversation with herself not too far away.

The woman is scattering imaginary bird seed to equally imaginary birds. As DeWitt creeps slowly up the steps behind her, the 'birds' seem to notice something before she does. "What's-what's the matter with you? Do you think it's poison?" she asks, oblivious to the presence behind her until it snaps her neck between two of the hooks. Two other splicers, who had been searching for supplies around the corner, hurry over, drawn by the noise. They lunge at DeWitt, lead pipes raised high, but his skyhook is stuck fast in the woman's neck. He whirls her body around in front of him to deflect one of the blows, and shoots the other slower splicer in the head. He falters, drops his pipe, then tumbles down the stairs and lands in front of Elizabeth, who's taking cover behind one of the railings. DeWitt and the lone survivor struggle for a moment with the woman's corpse dangling limply between them. Finally, DeWitt manages to pull the trigger hard enough to take the woman's head off and shoves the corpse forward, knocking the splicer to the ground. He struggles wildly to get the body off him before DeWitt shoots him once in the head and he goes limp.

"There." DeWitt says, breathing slightly harder than usual. "What were you sayin'?" he asks, but Elizabeth diverts his attention.

"That's the way to the main elevator..." she says, pointing behind him. He turns. Another large chasm lies between them and their goal, with yet another burst pipe gushing water into it, and no light sconces for them to jump onto. "That splicer had no problem freezing a path for himself." she muses.

"I'm sure he'll be happy to do the same for us." DeWitt grunts.

"I have no doubt you'll prove persuasive." she says. While DeWitt searches the surroundings for supplies, Elizabeth spies a promising sign. "'Snow Queen's Castle'..." she muses aloud. "I suppose there's no place like home, but wouldn't Jack Frost have been a better choice for a mascot? He's more recognizable."

"Think the kids found him too frightening." DeWitt says over his shoulder. "Besides, who'd you rather skate with: a grumpy old man or a willowy little blonde?"

He heads through the door the sign is advertising, marked by a large well-lit sign reading 'Stairs To Upper Level', but Elizabeth hangs back. Something about the display unnerves her, and suddenly she realizes why. There's a faint but all-too-familiar shimmer around it. Reluctantly, she calls upon her 'other sight'. "She's not supposed to appear for another half a century..." she whispers. "Is this  _my fault_?"

"You coming?" DeWitt says, poking his head back through the double doors. Hastily, Elizabeth brings herself back to base line.

"I found something." she announces, pulling a lockpick from one of her pockets. She hurries over and hands it to him.

"Good eye." he says. He looks at it closely. "Y' know how to use it?"

"I've browsed a couple books." she says idly. "Wouldn't mind a few pointers, if you have any." Her tone implies there isn't much, if anything, he could teach her, which is true.

"Sure. Here's one: don't break it." He tosses it back. "Yer nose is bleedin'." he adds.

She frowns.  _Never fails._  "Could I trouble you for your handkerchief again?" she asks.

"This?" He tugs it out of his breast pocket. "No trouble. Provided you answer a couple questions..."

"Do we really have time?" Elizabeth asks, when of course they do. Once again, she is metaphorically saved by a splicer. DeWitt turns to look at the door the noises are emanating from, pistol in one hand, handkerchief in the other, closer to Elizabeth. She takes it as they listen to the voice.

"Why do you always DO this?!" it demands of no one in particular. DeWitt edges towards the door. Judging by the deposits of ice and snow, it appears their quarry passed this way not long ago. "You think you're so much better! You'll open up if you know what's good for you!" The door opens silently, and he enters a large split-level open showroom. On the other side of an empty glass showcase, they can dimly see human-like shapes pounding on the door to something called 'The Daily Bread'. All around the room, water drips from the ceiling, forming small but sizable puddles that would attract undue attention if carelessly stepped into.

"Good spot f'r an ambush." DeWitt whispers.

"More than one if we're not careful." Elizabeth whispers back, her voice muffled by the handkerchief she's pushing against her nose.

"Yeah. Wait here; I'm gonna scout ahead."

"Can I at least have something to defend myself?" she hisses at his retreating back. He sighs and hands her his pistol.

"Make every shot count." he tells her, and disappears into the darkness. She huddles back against the counter.  _He's not going to fail,_  she says to herself. She wishes she could stop shivering...

* * *

DeWitt returns a short while later. "All right. Counted eight of 'em; four down below, four up top. They wander around a lot, but I managed t' hack one of their turrets. Soon as it starts firin', we need t' get movin'."

Her nose stopped bleeding a couple minutes ago. She passes him his blood-stained handkerchief and says, "Depending on where that turret is, we might be able to sneak past them."

"Or we could wipe 'em out from a crawlspace a couple feet away from the turret." he suggests. "Not sure how well they c'n crawl."

"We can't kill every splicer we run across..."

"Maybe not, but we c'n even the odds in case one of 'em goes for help."

A loud ringing sound cuts through the air, followed by the sound of machine gun fire. "The fucking turret shot me!" someone cries.

"Bash its brains out!" someone else cries.

"It doesn't have any brains!"

"I can't feel my leg!"

"Move!" DeWitt says. Elizabeth springs to her feet and follows him through the door. The upper landing is crowded with splicers trying to get to the supposedly malfunctioning turret, so their path across the room is clear. They hurry up the staircase, the clacking of Elizabeth's heels drowned out by the sounds of battle. They stop for breath in a room with two thoroughly frozen splicers and a set of broken stairs. "Find some cover." DeWitt tells her. "I'm gonna clear out whatever that turret can't." Elizabeth opens her mouth to protest, but he cuts her off. "Trust me. I'll be doing them a favor."

As she listens to the sound of gunfire and the screams of 'men' and 'women' being set alight with a snap of his fingers, Elizabeth finds it much easier to hate him.


	7. Ever On

" _...just as sexual reproduction can de-emphasize the traits of each parent, so goes the effect of multiple realities on our own. Your traits dissipate, until they become unrecognizable, or cease to exist."_

" _Why does this Comstock decay, while a Comstock in another world remains fit? If genetics are destiny, what accounts for the difference?"_

" _What am I? What AM I?"_

Footsteps. She looks up. There he is. "It's done." he says. Is that quiet, savage glee in his voice? "Come on. Gotta take the high road again."

She allows him to help her to her feet. It's easier for her to accept his arm around her this time, the way  _his_  had been once, so long ago. This next jump will be more difficult, but she knows he'll make it. He always does. She doesn't stop to think as he latches onto the light. She leaps away from him and grabs hold of the railing. There's a moment of pain as her joints voice their displeasure. Manageable. She pulls herself up and over and onto the landing, then steps away to give him room. There's another battle raging about ten feet away, but the participants are keeping each other busy. She hears a grunt. He made the jump. Almost. "Elizabeth!" He's calling for her help. She could let him drop, but she doesn't. She can't. She offers him a hand. Her right hand. He has to KNOW.

He takes it. She sees the familiar letters 'A.D' on the back of his hand; not scarred but inked. Her sacrifice was only temporary to him. Bile rises inside her throat. She has to fight not to be sick. "Somethin' wrong?" he asks once he's on the other side. She shakes her head. The gunfire dies down. The splicers have killed each other off. "Soon as you're ready." he tells her. She takes one more moment to relax, then nods at him. He nods back, and proceeds into the store. The lower level has been ransacked. No point in looking for supplies in here. He heads up the stairs, but is brought up short by a sudden spray of bullets. He ducks back behind cover. Once the bullets stop, he peers around the corner.

A battered old turret is all that sits between them and the Menswear exit. From its slightly bulkier design as well as the lack of a searchlight, DeWitt supposes it to be one of the motion-sensitive types favored by more unscrupulous businesses.  _Small wonder Fontaine liked 'em_ , he thinks grimly. There are bodies all around it.

"All right." he mutters to Elizabeth. "We're gonna need a distraction if we wanna make it by in one piece. Grab one of those dummies and throw it far as you can. That should give me enough time to get a few shots in." She does as he tells her; it's a solid plan and there's no sense making any extra noise someone could overhear. The mannequin isn't heavy as much as it is unwieldy; she shifts its weight in her hands as she figures out the best way to throw it. She throws it overhand past DeWitt and is rewarded with a loud clatter as it lands. The turret opens fire, tearing the plastic doll into chunks. DeWitt takes aim and fires once, twice. The bullets strike the ammo crate along the side. The machine explodes. He sighs and lowers his gun. "Good throw." he says.

"Good shooting." she returns. She's about to say something else when there's a commotion from Haberdashery ahead to the right. A trio of splicers hurry down the steps and take in the scene.

The one in front unholsters a machine gun. "They can't have gone far! Start looking!" he shouts. His associates fan out, holding a flashlight and a length of lead pipe respectively. They beat them menacingly against their palms.

The leader steps forward, leaving the menial task of searching to his underlings. "It's only gonna get worse, pal." he growls. "Just come on out. We'll make it nice an' easy for ya."

Elizabeth quietly moves behind cover, as if sensing the battle to come. DeWitt looks at his hand. The fire at his fingers is dimmer now. He'll need to find some EVE, and soon.

The splicer is almost upon him.  _Now or never,_  he thinks and grabs the splicer by the collar. Before the other man has time to let out more than a strangled 'wha?', DeWitt slams him face-first into the concrete pillar he had been hiding behind. The splicer reels for a moment, giving DeWitt a chance to grab the tommy gun from his hands and push him down the small flight of stairs. The other splicers are already closing in as he turns. He opens fire. The one with the lead pipe takes four shots to the chest before he goes down. The other has his flashlight raised high above his head. DeWitt barely dodges and pulls the trigger again.

_Click._

_Shit._

The splicer swings his weapon around wildly in a horizontal arc, catching DeWitt in the ribs. He grunts, the wind knocked clean out of him. The leader's getting back up. DeWitt doesn't have a choice. As the splicers advance, he snaps his fingers one last time. The splicer in charge howls horribly as his clothes and skin catch fire. His only remaining accomplice looks over in shock, which turns out to be a very big mistake. There's a loud crack or clanging sound as Elizabeth brings the discarded pipe down on his skull, laying him out across the floor.

The silence that follows is perforated by DeWitt gasping for breath, trying to ignore the smell of burning flesh. "Is he dead...?" he wheezes.

"Yes, he is." she says, not looking nearly as sick as she feels.

"You didn't even look."

"I've seen more than enough dead people in my time, Mr DeWitt. And if you plan on thanking me, I should think a fine way to start would be to not let this happen again." She picks the flashlight off the ground and is pleasantly surprised to find it's still in working order.

DeWitt struggles to his feet. "Let me see if they got any ammo. After that we c'n head out."

"Good. While we're at it, we might check Haberdashery to see if they had some sort of base of operations." Elizabeth says.

He grunts as his search turns up a few more clips for his new tommy gun. "Think that's givin' 'em a bit too much credit. But might as well..."

All that Haberdashery yields is another fistful of dollars, and upon examination of his wallet DeWitt discovers this to be more than enough to purchase an EVE Hypo from a Circus of Value, should they still be operational. On general principle he doesn't much care for needles, but there's a time and place for 'druthers'.

They head out the door to her left. Before long, they find themselves on the second level of the Pavilion. Just ahead is a Home Delivery station, with more Pneumo Bots hanging from the line. "Might be enough stuff around to make another of them sky hooks." DeWitt suggests.

"I hope you remember what I'll need to make them." she responds.

"Uhh, refresh my memory?" He takes one of the less damaged Pneumo Bots off of the line and sets it on the counter for Elizabeth to dismantle.

"One vacuum cleaner, one wrench, one leather belt, brackets, bolts, tape and wire." She rattles them off as if by memory. "Let's store the Bot down here, just in case some splicers wander past." She places it down below the counter.

"Vacuum cleaner won't be hard to find." DeWitt says. "Ladies Department's just over there."


	8. Edge Closer

The Ladies Department had been undergoing renovations when the building was set adrift, so there are plenty of places they might find the parts they need. DeWitt picks up a screwdriver that is only slightly smeared with blood (one down already) and sets about looking for the right size bolts. While examining the shelves in one of the stores he asks, "What'd you mean earlier? You said somethin' about only bein' interested in  _me_. I mean, if that's the case then why bother comin' after me with the Sally angle?"

"It was nothing, a...slip of the tongue. Forget I mentioned it." Elizabeth replies. She has her eyes out for the tape and the wire.

"I know you're the client and all, but I've gone about far enough without a few answers." He straightens up and tucks the newfound screwdriver into a pocket. "Start talkin'."

She turns to him. "Remember when you said you felt as if you'd seen me somewhere?" she asks. He nods in return. "You were right. And that's all I have to say about the matter."

The blood starts pounding in his head. He can feel his nose bleed. He hears her saying things she's never  _said_. No, she's...singing.  _"...Just remember darling, all the while... You belong to me..."_

When he recovers, she's still glaring at him, arms crossed beneath her breasts. "I'm startin' to get sick of this." he grumbles.

"Something we have in common." she observes. DeWitt shakes his head and gets back to work.

The trip to the jewelry store proves to be very productive. Not only do they have the bolts that Elizabeth needs, but a wrench and brackets to boot. "Let's check upstairs for the wire 'n' tape." DeWitt suggests.

"The men's department is bound to have a belt we can use." Elizabeth says. "That just leaves the vacuum cleaner."

"Gettin' a little ahead of yourself. We don't even know if they'll have the wire and tape up there." Suddenly he realizes what he's saying. "Look at us. We started out lookin' f'r a girl, ONE GIRL. Now we're on a scavenger hunt at the bottom of the ocean. We don't even know if she's in this damn place..."

"What other choice do we have?" Elizabeth asks.

That brings him up short, but not for long. "How are we s'posed t' make it back t' the city?" he continues. "The bathysphere's probably on its way back by now, on an automated timer."

"Now who's the one getting ahead of themselves?" she says pointedly. DeWitt grimaces.  _She's good._  he thinks.

They make their way upstairs. There's only one store that's 'open'. "Shoes." DeWitt observes. "Well at the very least they might have somethin' quieter 'n' what you've got on."

She says nothing. She's getting too friendly with him. She's mistaking him for someone he's not. Someone she can never see again. If she listens hard enough, she can almost hear what he might say:  _"That man doesn't care about right or wrong. But you do. There's still a chance f'r you t' walk away."_

" _Walk away?"_  she thinks to herself (or to him) as she watches the other man begin his search.  _"You asked me what would happen if I woke up one day and didn't like the choice that I'd made. But I can_ change _them!"_

Another voice comes to mind, chiding yet dispassionate.  _"Can you?"_

" _Or are you becoming part of the problem instead of the solution?"_ A third voice, different from the second, but somehow almost identical.

" _What if you create more worlds through your actions instead of diminishing them?"_

" _That was your intent, was it not? To diminish the worlds where Comstock and the events of Columbia occurred?"_

" _But you cannot reduce an infinite number of possibilities."_

" _You can try I suppose."_

" _Better her than us..."_

Then the voices are gone, leaving Elizabeth tired, cold and alone. DeWitt has moved out of sight, though she thinks she can hear him rummaging around inside the shoe store. She opens the door. "Find anything?" she asks the darkened interior, her Rapture poise and manner of speaking falling by the wayside for a moment. If he could see her now, he probably wouldn't even recognize her. There's no response. She tries again. "Mr DeWitt?" She takes another step into the store. Silence.

A hand closes around her mouth.


	9. Momentary Lull

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if this chapter comes across as filler, but it was unavoidable.

“Splicer.” he murmurs in her ear. Her moment of terror is gone, replaced with hot blinding rage. How _dare_ he! “This one's different from the others. Best we get a move on.” He pulls his hand away and edges around her toward the door.

“Don't touch me.” she spits after him, which turns out to be a mistake.

There's a clatter from further in. “I know I heard it that time!” something cries. An impossibly long neck snakes over to where Elizabeth had been standing. She's backed into the shadows now, and the head on top of the neck squints around to try and find her. Its eyes are large and unfocused and streaked with blood. The rest of its face is hardly any better. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice-” The head chuckles lowly. “-and I'll make you wish you were never born. How's that sound?”

DeWitt and Elizabeth are hardly moving, hardly breathing. DeWitt thinks about reaching for his gun, but the head is between him and Elizabeth. If it moves, he might lose any chance he has for answers. He reaches into his pocket and slowly pulls out the wrench, lining it up with the creature's skull before he lashes out. The long neck and head droop down to the floor. Elizabeth lets out the breath she's been holding. “What _is_ that?” she asks.

“Don't know. Not sure as I care to either.” DeWitt holds out a hand and beckons to her. “Let's get the hell out of here 'fore it wakes up.”

She disregards his outstretched hand and steps over the neck. “I suppose there's no sense asking if you got what we came for.” she says as she exits the store.

“I'd just laid eyes on the vacuum cleaner when I heard that thing talkin' to itself. Didn't have time to grab it then, but I might now. Wait here.” He hurries off to the right.

Elizabeth looks through the window at the deformed outline. What she can see of it is still motionless on the ground. “I don't think I've ever seen splicing turn out like this.” she murmurs. “It could be one of those 'spiders' getting greedy. Maybe SportBoost?” She runs through the list of Plasmids that she knows about, unwilling to 'look up' any more through the Sea of Doors. “Or Houdini. It might explain why his genes seem to have gotten confused the way they do.”

“Or maybe all of the above.” DeWitt says, holding the vacuum cleaner under one arm. “No sign of the other things y' wanted.” he adds.

“Then let's head back to the men's department for the belt.” she says, and turns on her heel.

He catches up after he bars the door with a spare bit of plywood. “What exactly is all this junk gonna do?” he asks.

As they make their way back through the Pavilion, Elizabeth explains. “The body of the vacuum cleaner will serve as the body of the device, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“The hooks from the Pneumo Bot are what will enable us to hold onto the light fixtures. The handle of the vacuum cleaner will trigger the magnet once we find the wire and tape. The belt, the brackets and the bolts act as an arm-rest. And you might have seen me using some other tools down below to help get the metal into shape, a metal cutter, drill and pliers, but there seem to be plenty of those around on workbenches and such.”

DeWitt shakes his head in disbelief. “There anything you can't do?” he asks, half-jokingly.

“I never learned how to cook. I had a...friend...of the family who...took care of that.” She had seen an echo of him in the deep-sea welder outside Market Street. Constants and variables. “Besides that? I never learned how to fire a gun, as I already told you. I'm not sure I want to learn either.”

DeWitt sets their new supplies down upon the Home Delivery counter. “It's lookin' like it's kill or be killed down here. Might be worth reevaluatin'.” He hesitates a moment, then draws his Mauser out and places it next to the pile. “Gimme a shout if y' need anythin'.”

Elizabeth hurriedly starts work on whatever she can to prepare for the other parts. She won't allow herself to think about how much trust he has begun to put in her, nor of how she will use that trust during what is to come.


	10. Fact From Myth I

The quality is poor; early 80s one suspects, recorded on VCR. But the contents are almost invaluable. Someone had been lucky enough to tape a rare episode of Fact From Myth, titled "Rapture: A Modern Day Atlantis?" The series aired late at night on whatever broadcasting networks would take it, and dealt with the sort of thing you'd expect from a program with that kind of name: Bigfoot sightings, alien abduction stories, so-called numbers stations, the 'Dyatlov Pass incident'... But every so often, it inadvertently mentioned something true, at least in passing. "A Modern Day Atlantis?" aired only once, and was never released on home video.

The episode opens with a shot of stormy water as a stone-voiced narrator intones, "'Somewhere, in the North Atlantic, far from any land, there lies a lighthouse. Some claim it's a ghost structure, built of ectoplasmic bricks and that glimmering light at its peak is fueled by the fires of Hell! They call this baleful black beacon the Phantom Lighthouse. Lord help the lost ship that wanders into these waters unaware - for suddenly, compasses spin awry and radios fill with static. Then the Phantom Lighthouse looms suddenly in the mist.'"

An artist's rendition of the Phantom Lighthouse fades in on screen. "'To set eyes upon it (so it's said) is to meet most certain death. The waters around the black tower are awash with the splinters of broken boats. the air around it echoes with the shrieks of dying sailors and the keening wails of unholy, misshapen creatures that feed on human flesh.'"

Thankfully the program doesn't go so far as to attempt to provide sound effects, and the screen goes black. "'It sounds like another old and lurid legend - but the tale is of recent vintage. Folklorists have found no trace of its telling before the end of World War II!'" There's a pause before the narrator continues speaking, somewhat less belaboredly. "These words from notorious pulp fiction author Carleton Rede's 1969 book  _Back to the Frozen Triangle_ , a sequel to his previous work quite simply titled  _The Frozen Triangle_ , allegedly overheard from a group of Icelandic sailors, paint a fantastic picture. But it's not nearly as fantastic as what these and other sources claim or hint lies beneath this 'Phantom Lighthouse': a city at the bottom of the ocean, where some of the best and brightest minds of the 20th century allegedly disappeared to in the chaos that followed Adolf Hitler and Japanese emperor Hirohito's defeat. Though hard evidence for the existence of this city is hard to come by, we consider it our duty to uncover as much as we can in  _Fact From Myth_."

The titlecard appears from a blur of stars: plain white text over a cloudy background of teal and blue and green and red. " _Fact From Myth,_ " it reads. " _Rapture: A Modern Day Atlantis? Narrated by Miles Bloom._ "

You have to fast-forward through the commercials yourself. No TiVo in the days the recording was made. As is often the case, you misjudge the end of the commercials and end up fast-forwarding through the introduction of the next segment. You press Play and then Rewind, with the portrait of an infamous man staring out at you from the television. You hit Play again, and the narrator begins. "Our story begins with Andrew Ryan. Born Andrei Rianofski in Czarist Russia, he fled the country two years after the revolution which brought the Communists into power, abdicating to America. For a while, he lived in peace, enjoying what he believed to be the fruits of his labor, his intellect and willpower. He founded, as well as owned, Ryan Oil; what was then the second biggest railroad in the country; and a large percentage of American coal mines as well. Then the New Deal arrived, and Andrew Ryan proved to be as little a fan of state-run social programs then as he had been in 1919. Rather than allow Congress to nationalize a forest he owned to turn it into a park, he burned it to the ground." A picture of a forest goes up in fake flames. The narrator continues. "By 1945, the industrial magnate had begun secluding himself from the public eye. The FBI launched an investigation into certain undisclosed business practices, but nothing ever came of it. Nothing official, at any rate. And in 1947..." The portrait of Ryan, which reappeared after the 'fire', disappears again. "Andrew Ryan vanished."

Newspaper headlines about the disappearance flash in, then stock pictures of businesses or business-related things like accountants slowly cycle in and out. "When the IRS received Ryan's business records, they were not surprised to discover that his accounts were almost empty. There was little to no paper trail regarding where the money had gone, and the popular consensus was that he'd gotten out while the getting was good and was 'sunning it up on a beach somewhere'."

The narrator sounds contemplative. "But with the benefit of hindsight, and a number of strange findings that have emerged throughout the years, some have begun to wonder if Mr Ryan had found a better use for his money. Someplace free of government interference... When  _Fact From Myth_ returns, we'll examine a trunk of mysterious memorabilia that washed up on the New England coast, including this haunting painting."

A pale young woman with black hair that reaches  _almost_  to her shoulders is captured in motion, dancing solemnly, almost wistfully, with a man nearly a full head taller than her. His back is to the artist and the viewer, but there's a quality in his posture that provides the impression that he's focusing entirely on her, ignoring the disturbing shapes that lurk in the background, as indeed he had been that Christmas night.


	11. Frosty On Ice

Elizabeth pushes the pistol back across the counter, newly-crafted skyhook in her other hand. "Here." she says to DeWitt. He'd procured the necessary belt AND wire AND tape from the men's department, and returned somewhat surprised with his good fortune.

DeWitt looks askance at her. "What, you prefer the machine gun?" he asks.

"I'd prefer if we got a move on. I think I'll leave the firearms to you." she replies. "You appear to be more than competent in handling them."

He picks up the Mauser with practiced ease. "Guess you could say I've been around a bit as well." he mutters. He lost track of how many lives this gun has taken many years ago, and the body count is only continuing to rise. "You do all right in a scrap, but the moment someone gets the drop on ya, you might be wishin' you'd taken me up on this." he tells her, after a moment adding, "'Sides, I'm not gonna be around f'rever, then what're ya gonna do?"

"I don't make a habit out of this line of work." Elizabeth says as she comes around the counter to stand next to him. "Once this job is done, it may prove to be my last." She is so close to her rest now...

"That so?" DeWitt walks over to the elevator. The button is stuck and takes a few good hits with his fist before it lights up. "You gotta retirement plan lined up?" he asks to pass the time.

"I have  **a**  plan." she admits. Then she frowns. "Hear that?" There's the sound of an argument coming from the elevator.

DeWitt nods grimly. "Splicers." He takes up a position to the left of the elevator doors, and Elizabeth does the same before he can give her the signal to.

There's a  _thump_ , a  _ding_ , and the doors open. Two splicers, a male and a female, step out. "You're crazy if you think either one of 'em gives a fuck about us." the female scoffs.

"Just you wait." the male snaps at her. "Soon as things go south, we'll be fielding offers left right and center!"

"At least Atlas had some fresh ideas." the female gripes. "Ryan just wants us to go back to the status quo." She turns at the sound of a footstep behind her, and she and her partner go down in a hail of bullets from DeWitt's tommy gun. He pauses for a cursory inspection of their belongings, but quickly straightens up and motions for Elizabeth to get into the elevator. He pushes the button marked 3F and the doors close.

"Look." he sighs at last. "Somethin's botherin' me." He amends his statement under Elizabeth's inquisitive look. "More 'n' just one thing. What are we doin' down here? If Sally IS alive, an' she IS a Little Sister, why would the eggheads in charge of makin' ADAM want to send her here? It'd be like ringin' a dinner bell for the splicers..."

Elizabeth frowns in pretend thought. "Maybe they're trying to find an alternate means of production..."

"How's that?"

"ADAM...changes your biological makeup, turns old cells into new ones. Maybe someone started thinking about taking the drug right out of the addicts." She has to keep things vague enough to be plausible, without being specific enough to arouse any more of his suspicion.

"Hmm... Prob'ly means she'll have an escort."  _Thump. Ding._  The doors are open.

It doesn't take an egghead to realize that the Plasmids section would have been the first one hit when the department store was jettisoned, so DeWitt ignores the still-flashing sign and makes straight for the Snow Queen's Castle.

Between two large art deco sculptures of the 'Snow Queen' and her alpine decorations is the door to her castle: a plain uninspired metal Securis door. It opens to reveal an absolutely glacial interior, with real snow across the floor and around the walls, to say nothing of the ice that hangs low over their heads. "Something tells me all this cold isn't just coming from the ice rink." Elizabeth says softly. They make their way around the merchandise stand set up in the middle and find another door in back. The first thing they see upon entering is a jagged block of ice in front of the doorway with a corpse impaled on the tallest of the icicles.

To the right, DeWitt spies the skate rental. "Any fancy for a figure eight?" he asks wryly. The look she gives him in response is as icy as their surroundings.

There are more corpses around the room, all frozen in positions of horror. The doors to the ice rink itself have at least a touch of inspiration. Made primarily of glass and looking like a majestic gate, they swing slowly open to reveal the rink. A giant and obviously recently handmade sculpture of the titular queen stands in the center, with their blue-skinned and bearded quarry gliding around the icy floor, chipping away at certain parts with a stolen chisel. There's no sign of any other movement in the room, although the alcoves to the left and right are obscured by two of the four pillars that hold up the roof.

DeWitt crouches behind a railing and sneaks furtive looks at the target. Elizabeth hurries to join him, mindful of the sound of her shoes. Luckily, she and DeWitt seem to be the only ones who notice. "Alright. This is gonna get ugly. The crystals on that thing are gonna make it hard f'r me t' get a good shot t' the head, an' I don't have enough EVE f'r Incinerate. We'll have t' make do. I'll try an' draw their fire; you see if y' can find some hypos or somethin'." She nods. He takes his pistol from his coat, and checks to make sure the safety is off. "Here goes..." he mutters. He pokes his head out and fires.

The first shot hits the splicer in the shoulder. He staggers, then whirls around. "What was that?" he shouts, looking wildly at the upper level. DeWitt pauses, grimly relishing the silence that the echoes of the splicer's voice leave in their wake, then he fires again. One of the crystal growths upon the man's head shatters, but he doesn't go down. He points right at DeWitt and yells, "I've had it up to  _here_ with you! This one's all yours boys!"

Four splicers charge out of the alcoves on either side and up the stairs towards DeWitt. Elizabeth presses herself against a wall to avoid being seen, but the splicers only seem to have eyes for DeWitt, who's retreated into the other room in search of cover. She counts to four after they pass, then hurries down the stairs. Their bearded leader has turned his attention back to the statue, ignoring the sounds of gunfire outside.

The time for subtlety is over for now. Elizabeth straightens up. "Ray Lardner." she says, her tone flat and cold as the ground underfoot.

He throws a bolt of Winter Blast at the sound of her voice without turning. "I don't know you doll." he growls. "You better get lost before my boys come back."

She opens up a tear in the blink of an eye, and the ice disappears into a river of molten lava on the other side. "You don't have to know me." she says, snapping the tear closed. The thing that had been Ray Lardner turns. Even his drug-addled senses can tell something isn't right about this one. "Just give us some of that Plasmid and we'll let you live."

He throws back his head and laughs. "You think I'm afraid of you?" His voice has an odd echoey quality, like he's speaking from inside a block of his own ice. "I could break you into a million pieces before the old man gets back. IF he gets back..."

"He is  **not**  my old man." Elizabeth snaps. "This is your last chance."

A cold wind begins to billow in the still ice rink, stirring up the snow both real and fake that's lying all around, blowing Elizabeth's hair out of its carefully arranged curls and away from her face. Even she's getting goosebumps. The splicer has to shout to be heard above the gale he's created. "It'll be a shame to ruin that pretty face of yours. But you can't say I didn't warn ya!" He throws his chisel at her.

Elizabeth yanks her body to the side to avoid it. She narrows her eyes, searching for the eye of the storm. She knows she has only moments before he launches another attack.  _There._ A tear appears off to her right. The splicer gasps, one last breath of air quickly lost in the maelstrom. "No you can't." she says.

There's a crunch and a thump as the tear closes. As the snow dies down, Elizabeth can see the splicer's upper body convulsing in its death throes upon the ground. Its lower half is somewhere else entirely.

DeWitt comes back in through the large double doors. The splicers had been trouble, forcing him to use up two entire magazines of ammunition for the machine gun. The silence in the rink has him on edge. He crouches down behind the railing, then, unable to wait, he pokes his head over the top. "Elizabeth?" he calls. "Are you okay?"

What happens next happens in slow motion. He sees her. And he sees what she is staring at: the legless object of their search, lifeblood staining the ice.


	12. Troubled Waters

"Elizab-" The moniker hangs unfinished in the air between them as another thought forces its way out of DeWitt's mouth. "What did you-" The skyhook wouldn't have been nearly enough to rip a man in half like that, even in  _his_  hands. And where are his legs?

She's still staring at it. Then she staggers away, and he hears her starting to retch in a corner. He can hardly say he blames her. But the question remains. "What did you  _do_?"

For her part, Elizabeth can't bring herself to answer. Even if she hadn't been vomiting up her meager excuse for a dinner, how could she possibly hope to explain herself to this man? He of all people has had the closest experience to what she's just been through, but... no, he would never understand. He has no compassion, no guilt, no empathy. He rejected those when he took the baptism.  _Then why is he here?_

Her stomach is empty, but the compulsion to upheave is still overwhelming. She goes through the motions again, but the only thing coming up is bile. And...blood.  _It's begun._

She forces herself to her feet. The room is spinning unevenly. She waves off his questions with a trembling hand.  _The Plasmid. ADAM is the only thing that can hold it back._ She almost retches again as she makes her way back to the statue.  _There must be a reason. No, they're_ insane _. But it's my only shot. Maybe...maybe he built this thing like a vault._

Her vision swims. She has to struggle to keep her thoughts in line.  _You've spent your whole life preparing for this_ , she tells herself in a daze.  _It's just...another door..._  She runs her hand across the base of the statue, grimacing at a sudden stabbing pain and the resultant red trail her hand leaves behind.  _All right._  she thinks grimly.  _Just have to work faster._

Finally, right in the middle, she thinks she can feel something give. She pushes hard, drawing what little strength she can from her beleaguered body, and is rewarded with a barely audible  _clink_. A small panel comes undone and swings toward her. Inside, there's naught but a pile of empty syringes. Wait. Right there at the back. One last dose of Winter Blast.

She eagerly reaches in and takes hold of it. She pulls it out, ignoring the trickle of hypos that fall to the floor in its wake. DeWitt still doesn't know there's anything wrong. "Hey. Let me." he says. He's reaching for it. She yanks it away.

"It's mine!" she snaps. She's already sounding like an addict.

"Suit yourself." he says, withdrawing his hand. As she pulls out the plunger, she hears him add, "Just let me get to safe distance. No tellin' what'll happen with a first-time splice."

She does, not out of any sense of concern for his wellbeing, but because it takes her so much time to prepare herself. She hadn't had a problem with needles before one particular day during her captivity. She  **should**  try to keep her hand and arm steady in order to get the needle in cleanly, but she's not sure that she can...  _Deep breath,_ she tells herself. _Hold to a count of ten. Try not to think about how much this is going to hurt._

Too late.

The needle goes in. She barely bites back a gasp. She pushes down on the plunger with her thumb, making sure that all the liquid goes in. The moment she pulls the needle out, she feels her veins start to boil underneath her skin. Spikes of ice shoot out from the cracks of her skin. She doubles over, clutching at her stomach, unable to express her agony through her chattering jaws...and then it's over. Panting, gasping, she looks down at her trembling hands, where the shards of ice are still plainly visible. But she doesn't feel them. She doesn't feel any pain at all. It takes her a moment to realize what she  _is_  feeling. Happy. Elizabeth laughs, first in disbelief, then louder, more genuinely. Deep inside, she can feel the ADAM start to rebuild her damaged and fractured DNA, or maybe she's just imagining it. Either way it feels good. She slowly unclenches her fists, uncurls her spine and straightens up. Not even the sight of the false false shepherd poking his head around a corner of one of the alcoves up above can dampen her spirits.

"We good?" he calls down to her.

 _No,_  she thinks to herself even as she nods.  _Not until you pay for what you did to me._ But it's an idle hatred compared to the all-consuming fire it had been when she'd first laid eyes upon him.

He makes his way across the ice to come and join her. "Time we get a move on." he says. "No telling who might've overheard that little commotion." Concern is mingled with apprehension as he looks down at her. "You sure you're okay?" She nods again impatiently. "Good. Then maybe on th' way back you can tell me what in god's name you did to that splicer over there."

Her mood on the way back to the elevator is euphoric, heavily encroaching on hysterical. "I guess you could say I gave him the COLD SHOULDER!" she giggles. DeWitt frowns. "I put him on icccccce..."

She sobers somewhat on seeing the bodies they've left in their wake, and as the elevator doors shut, she lets him in on another modicum of truth. "Things have a way of...appearing around me." There's a twinge of nausea as she remembers how equally true the opposite is, but she fights her way past it. "I can pull things through from other dimensions, dimensions like ours but different."

DeWitt considers this. "You mean... one where there's a first aid kit or a hypo full of EVE sittin' on a table downstairs?" he asks after a while.

"That's a rather limited outlook, but yes." she replies.

"HOW?" At last, the real question.

"I don't know." she lies, and what a lie it is. The doors open and she makes to leave, but he grabs her by the shoulder.

"Uh uh. I ain't letting you drop this one so easy." If he paid attention, he might have noticed how she turns rigid at his touch. "Stuff like that's way beyond even Plasmids." She shakes him off and turns with a glare. He continues, undeterred. "There's somethin' awful wrong 'bout you Elizabeth." he says, and what a TRUTH that is.

"I believe I said to keep your hands to yourself Mister DeWitt." Elizabeth replies. There's a stony glint in her eye that he hadn't seen there before. "I'm not as helpless as I was."

He sees her frost-covered hands and decides to back off. He doesn't think he could hurt her, much as she may want to hurt him. They make their way through Menswear, this time in reverse, and are soon standing in front of the hole with the overflowing pipe on the second floor. Elizabeth clenches her hand into a fist with an ominous crackling sound, then she lets loose with a blast of frost that turns the gushing water into a bridge like the one the erstwhile Mr Lardner had made for himself down below. She glares silently at DeWitt until he steps across.

The central elevator of Fontaine's Department Store looms tall before them. DeWitt hits the call button, and the distant humming of machinery fills the air.

The ceiling cracks. Elizabeth looks up.


	13. Combo Breaker

Something slams into her, knocking her off balance. "Teach you to sneak up on me!" the thing howls as it wraps itself around her head and neck. DeWitt grabs it by the shoulder, trying to pull it off of her. The creature elbows him in the side of the head and returns its attention to Elizabeth, but the momentary distraction is all she needs to punch it hard in the ribs with the spikes on her ice-covered hand to loosen its grip and hurl it away. The creature, recognizable now as the freakishly elongated splicer from before, bounces back like rubber as it hits the floor. Elizabeth quickly freezes it solid.

"Mr DeWitt!" she cries, running over to check on him. She's going to need his skill with a gun to take this thing down if she doesn't want to risk further damage to her body.

He looks up at her, his eyes groggy from the pain. Then he hears the ice shatter behind him and whirls around, opening fire with his pistol. A bullet digs into the splicer's chest. It retreats, hissing, into the shadows. "I'm all right." he says gruffly. "You?"

"Fine as well." she says. "It seems to be hyperopic. If we get in close-"

"You wanna try that in English?"

Before she has a chance to respond, the splicer shrieks "I can hear you!" from somewhere close by. Elizabeth starts. Her heart starts to beat faster and faster as she searches the darkness. She ducks suddenly to avoid a trash can haphazardly hurtling through the air. "I can hear everything! I can hear the boys talking to the men; it won't be long nowww..." DeWitt fires off another shot. The splicer yelps at first, but its yelp turns into a sinister chuckle, causing the hair on the back of DeWitt's neck to stand on end. "Not far off that time..." it says. "I guess I have to put you out of your MISERY!" As it barks the final word, its limbs come snaking out of the darkness, throwing debris and bits of broken glass and the odd punch.

Elizabeth breaks into a run. DeWitt follows suit, noting in the back of his mind as he attempts to provide some covering fire how the tables seem to have shifted since their arrival. Now SHE'S leading the way. The splicer howls as he continues his attempts to pelt them with rubble. They duck out of sight behind the shaft of the elevator that rises up to meet the ceiling in the center of the room. Elizabeth lowers her voice, hoping that the splicer won't be able to hear her this time. "Hyperopia means it has trouble seeing things close by. We might stand more of a chance like that."

"Or he might beat the shit out of us before we c'n get close enough." DeWitt murmurs. "Why don't you just do whatever y' did with Frosty up top?"

For the first time, Elizabeth's aloof veneer seems to crumble. In its place, DeWitt sees a shockingly young girl, terrified of the powers she controls, powers beyond even what Plasmids can do. "That...that was a mistake." she whispers.  _Then what had she planned on doing? Why is she here? Who IS sh_ e _?_

"Y' can make it again, can't ya?" She says nothing. So much for that idea.

In the distance, the splicer mutters to itself while it tries to find them. "It's quiet now... but you'll bring back all the noise. I have to get RID of you..."

The elevator  _ding_ s loudly. Elizabeth flinches. The noise has caught the splicer's attention. She and DeWitt still their breathing as it draws closer. It wanders into the elevator, dragging its misshapen arms behind it. They can hear it thumping about inside, trying to find the source of the noise. The doors close, trapping it inside. They can breathe again, for the moment, but they still have to get in there and kill it. DeWitt brings out his skyhook. "I could use yer help in there with that Plasmid." he says. "So long as y' don't freeze me as well."

Elizabeth nods, coming closer to the woman who'd walked into his office earlier that night ( _if it is still night_ , he thinks.) "That won't be a problem." she replies.

"'at's the spirit." he tells her. She pushes herself off the metal backing and walks around DeWitt to the call button. He joins her, and nods, and she pushes the button with her thumb.

The doors open again. The splicer turns halfway before DeWitt tackles it, slamming into the wall. Its head connects with a thud, but it maintains enough awareness to wrap a leg around its assailant's waist and send him spinning into a different wall. It pushes itself off the wall and staggers toward him. "Elizabeth! Do it!" DeWitt yells.

For a moment, she considers letting the splicer rough him up a little ( _no better than he deserves_ ), but she'll need him to be as close to his best as possible during the final stretch. So she holds up her hand and fires another Winter Blast, encasing the splicer in a block of ice long enough for DeWitt to gather up his strength and swing his skyhook at the creature's head, which promptly shatters. The rest of its body teeters and collapses, doing the same as its head once it hits the ground.

Her shoulders slump. "It's over." she whispers, then immediately realizes her mistake.  _Not yet. Not quite._  But she is  _so_  tired now. The exhilaration from the injection has died away, and she feels just as empty as before. She wants another Plasmid, maybe Decoy or Natural Camouflage, but then she remembers what ADAM can do in addition to repairing DNA. Its potential for addiction is stronger than any other drug this world will see, and given her parentage, she's more at risk than most. Her eyes brim with tears.  _Booker..._

She trudges into the elevator where DeWitt is catching his breath. She pushes a button without looking. "Where are we goin'?" he asks. She ignores him. He peers over at the panel. "Fifth floor? Why? Sally could be anywhere in here. If she even IS here..."

"I have a hunch, that's all." she murmurs.

Something in her voice catches his attention. He looks at her curiously from a distance. "Are you crying?" he asks, his voice rising in surprise.

"No." She wipes away her tears. "It's nothing."

The interior of the elevator is quiet as it makes the climb to the fifth floor. The exterior however is not; the mechanism is worn and rusting so it's slow going. For want of something to do, DeWitt checks his weapons to make sure they're loaded. The pistol is, barely, but he's out of ammunition for the tommy gun. "Great." he grumbles. "Think you could 'Tear' me some ammo f'r this?" He holds it up. "Or a...hypo full of EVE? Maybe both?"

"We'll see what we can find" is her response.

The doors  _ding_  open. DeWitt readies his pistol and looks about the room. It seems to be clear, but off to the left they can hear voices. Cautiously, he and Elizabeth creep toward them.

"How much longer we gotta be down here?"

"Til Ryan's gook gets all the 'data' he requires."

"Yeah? And how long'll that take?"

"We'll have to see, won't we? Have to...nnh!...find a body she'll take to, wait until she's done, run the test on her..."

"Test...?" DeWitt murmurs, rising to his feet, ready to gun these cold-hearted bastards down, no matter how armored Ryan's got them, but Elizabeth puts a hand on his arm to restrain him. He's taken aback by her action, and so is she, but he crouches back down and waits until the goons have moved on. As the footsteps (and the arguing) recede into the distance, he looks at his client with one eyebrow raised. "I seem to remember you sayin' 'don't touch me' at some not-too-distant-point in our respective past..."

"It was the only way I could think of getting your attention without getting theirs." Elizabeth mutters. "Do you think they _are_  taking orders from Andrew Ryan?"

"Seemed better supplied compared t' most of the splicers we've seen...but I think I know a way t' find out f'r sure." So saying, he heads into the darkness after them.


	14. Getting Ready

As Elizabeth moves to follow him, she is forced to slow her pace by her choice of footwear, less than ideal for subterfuge or stealthy operations. She passes by a number of deserted storefronts. Some are lit, some are not. Then she sees a shape crouching in the shadows opposite a place labeled 'Tom & Dave'. As her eyes adjust to the dim lighting, she can see the now-familiar outline of DeWitt's trenchcoat and hat. As she settles down beside him, she notices one of the signs in the window reads 'HIRED GUNS - CONTRACTS - PAINTINGS'. "Paintings?" she repeats aloud in a bemused whisper.

"Mob code f'r murder." DeWitt mutters. "Rumor had it Alexander an' Williams were wanted by the feds 'fore they got scarce. Made a hell of a livin' down here, if you'll, uh, pardon the pun."

She sighs inside. "What are we doing here?" she asks.

"Door looks like it's still locked. Figured they might have some supplies we could make use of. Thing is, it's got a keypad out front, which means no forcin' it."

"Hmm." She thinks back through what feels like years upon years to her self-taught cryptography lessons, and the use she'd put them to. "Do you think they went down with the store? Perhaps we can find what's left of them and...persuade them to give us the code." She tells herself they're mobsters, that somehow that makes it all right.

"Worth a shot." DeWitt says. "Very least we'd be able t' keep an eye an' ear out f'r one of them Circus of Values." He pushes himself to his feet and, after a wary glance around him, walks away towards the other shops. Elizabeth hurries to catch up.

The fifth floor is much more spacious than the other floors have been. It feels like a street one might find on the surface: the buildings are large and square and of uneven height, but none quite reach the ceiling, leaving the rooftops open for additional advertising. Some of the debris from recent skirmishes seems to have fallen in peculiar arrangements, in places appearing to resemble a makeshift obstacle course. From time to time, strange figures can be seen moving back and forth up there, perhaps some last remnants of a band of survivors. No one seems willing to attack at least. DeWitt wonders what the odds are that men like Alexander and Williams would manage this long without turning to splicing. About as low as the odds of the girl the armed thugs mentioned actually being Sally. Which in turn are about as low as the odds of him managing to take out however many other thugs Ryan had sent...

"Mister DeWitt." Elizabeth's voice is pitched low and soft.

"I hear it." he says. There's the sound of mechanical laughter somewhere nearby. "How you doin' on EVE?"

"I should be good for a while." He wouldn't begin to understand  _why_.

"Okay." DeWitt takes out his wallet and begins to count. "...$120." That's enough for a little bit of ammo and a hypo full of EVE, with a little left over. He slips his wallet back into a different pocket, taking care not to let Elizabeth see which. He hasn't forgotten that trick she pulled in Cohen's club.

They find the Circus of Value they'd heard over on their right, outside a shop called Laurel Boutique. Elizabeth stands watch while DeWitt makes his purchases. The door of the shop is open, and the lights flicker dimly. She thinks she spies a shelf full of shoes inside. Tempting though the thought of slipping out of her exhausting and painful heels is, she stays close to her 'client', only bringing it up once he's loaded himself with ammunition and EVE.

DeWitt bites back a gasp as he feels energy flood back into his veins. The fire in his hands flares up anew, and he turns to speak with Elizabeth. "We're s'posed t' be lookin' f'r those two mobsters, remember?"

"I'm aware." she returns coolly. "But quieter shoes would make for faster travel."

He scowls. "Fine." he says. "But no lights. Don't need t' give the splicers any reason t' notice us."

He follows her into the store. While she searches the rack of shoes, she asks, "Where do you think we should look?"

He grunts thoughtfully. "Assumin' y' don't wanna just Tear open the door..." She gives him a look filled with slightly more disdain than usual. She isn't sure how her body would react to fresh quantum stress. "They'd probably start by hoardin' up supplies. So a restaurant or somethin'?"

She finds a pair of Mary Janes that appear to be to her liking and gives him a mildly approving glance as she hops up onto the countertop and begins to ease off her high heels. An expression of intense relief crosses her face as they come off one after the other, and she sets them aside before trying on the Mary Janes. She purses her lips faintly, then hops down and walks the length of the shop. DeWitt sighs pointedly. Elizabeth pays him no mind. "These should be good." she says, taking one last look at her new acquisitions. "Lead the way."

"You sure? Don't feel like tryin' on one of them frocks 'fore we go?" The glare is back. "Just sayin'. That blouse of yours has seen better days." he adds.

"We don't really have time for that do we?" she asks, folding her arms.

"Exactly my point." he says. "Let's get goin'." And so they do. They make sure to keep an eye on the names of the buildings in case they see one that seems as though it might contain a restaurant. The windows of many are shuttered or, in more affluent cases, have blinds drawn behind the open shutters. Ahead at an intersection, they find themselves in front of the Manta Ray Lounge. Once it had been been the setting of some of Oscar Calraca's most notorious parties. Now there's no telling what it might hold.

One of the front doors has been blown off its hinges, scattering broken glass all over the reception area. DeWitt and Elizabeth pick their way around the pieces, careful not to make too much noise. There's nothing of note behind the reception desk, so they continue into the lounge itself, which would have been even more stunning if the lights had been working. As it is, it looks ominous; the large flower-like lamp in the center now fails to illuminate the entirety of the room, so that huge swathes of it are left in darkness. They descend the staircase, DeWitt reaching into his coat for his pistol. "Y' ever get invited t' one of Oscar's big get-togethers in here?" he asks.

"Repeatedly." Elizabeth replies, lips curling in distaste. "He seemed to think my declinations were a sign of a magnificent prize, that all he need do was bait more hooks and continue casting until he'd reel me in."

"Which is a nice way of sayin' he wouldn't take no f'r an answer." DeWitt says with a grimace. "Hate t' think what would've happened if he'da caught ya."

"I can take care of myself-" she says, already bristling.

"I meant what would've happened t' him." DeWitt says wryly. Elizabeth's anger diminishes, and she realizes that despite herself, and the things this man has done, that she's beginning to  _like_  him. The thought sickens her than she would have believed possible.  _Can I really go through with this?_  she wonders.

Something moves in the shadows. DeWitt aims his pistol, but Elizabeth is faster. She throws out a hand and freezes it solid. DeWitt lets out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding (old army habit). "Good thinkin'; might need whoever this is alive." he says. Together they drag the man-sized ice block out into the open and rest it against the bar. When he thaws, the force of gravity pulls him forward so he's sprawled over it, unable to reach for any weapons he might have. Elizabeth holds him down while DeWitt gives him a frisking. They both take note of the way the man is rigid with fear (and more than likely cold), and the way his face is unmarked by the signs of ADAM addiction. "You got a name?" DeWitt asks, keeping his voice deceptively friendly.

"Al-Al-Albert Evansssss." he stammers.

"You happen to know a couple of gangsters who used to work around here?" Elizabeth asks. "Tom and Dave...?"

"I-I-I can't tell yyyyyou anythhhhhing." he says. "Theyyyyyyy-they'd killllllll me."

"You got two choices." DeWitt says. Having finished frisking Evans for weapons, he leans against the bar opposite Elizabeth. "Y' can tell us what we wanna know and  _possibly_  die later, or y' c'n stay quiet an' stay quiet f'rever." If Evans cranes his neck as far as it'll go, he can see the Mauser just out of reach, though notably not out of DeWitt's reach.

 _He didn't want this._  Elizabeth thinks.  _He was just a kid, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like me._ "Your bosses have some ammunition we're in need of. Knowing their reputation, they won't give it up without a fight." she assures him. "You won't have anything more to fear from them." DeWitt looks up at her. He's never seen this side of her before.

"I-I need a mmmminute to thhhhink." Evans stutters out.

"We're a little short on time ourselves." DeWitt tells him. "Y' got...ten seconds." To his credit, he doesn't add additional pressure by counting down.

Ten... nine... eight...

"All right all right!" Evans says. "Wha-what do you wanna knnnnnow?"

"Code f'r the front door. We'll handle the rest."

"That's easy; it's..." He takes a moment to concentrate. "1-8-9-3. Dave's into ccccclassical music, so he picked the year hhhhis favorite tune got played." He raises his head. "Can I gggggo?" he asks plaintively.

DeWitt pushes himself off the counter. "Thanks Al. It's been a pleasure." As he's walking away, Elizabeth sees him looking thoughtfully at his handgun.

"Mr DeWitt!" she hisses under her breath, hurrying to catch up with him. "He gave us what we asked for!" she scolds him. Part of her is hoping he'll pull the trigger; Evans may not make it out of here, and this would be a quicker death than the other possibility. It'd also make it easier for her to kill  _him_...

"He might get back to them 'fore we do." DeWitt growls. "They prob'ly gave him a radio so they c'n keep in touch."

"Did you find one on him?" she demands.

"No, but that don't mean he didn't get one. He's prob'ly got it stowed away somewhere and is just waitin' for us t' leave." But he looks doubtful. After a long long moment, he puts it away and continues walking. Elizabeth follows, brow furrowed, eyes wide. She remembers the words another him spoke to her long ago.

"What if you woke up one day and realized you didn't like what you chose?"


	15. Confrontation

When they return to the storefront, DeWitt expects Elizabeth to key in the code right away, given how eager she's seemed to get this ordeal over with. So he's surprised when instead she turns to look at him, looking apprehensive. "What is it?" he asks.

"We need a plan." she says.

"No sense plannin' ahead if we don't even know what the place looks like." DeWitt responds.

"If we open this door, they'll know we're coming. That's if they don't already..." She'd forgotten how limiting a single perspective could be.

"Alright, well... If they worked f'r the mob, they're likely t' have guns 'n' ammunition lyin' around. Which means no Incinerate; one loose flame an' the whole floor'd go up." DeWitt puzzles it out, slowly but surely. "That's all I c'n think of."

She doesn't seem to be any more comfortable, but she lifts a finger up to the dials and begins to enter the code. DeWitt checks and double-checks his firearms while he waits. The door creaks open, revealing a well-lit but noticeably vacant shop. As DeWitt makes his customary sweep from the doorway, something hurtles out at him from a darkened room in the back. He ducks, his mind already registering the shape and size of the object. It's a grenade. "Move!" he hisses, grabbing Elizabeth by the arm and pulling her inside the shop. The door closes behind them, but not fast enough, and a cloud of acrid smoke billows in after them. They slump to the floor, almost in unison, wheezing, choking. The smoke gets in their eyes and  _burns_. It slithers into their throats and lungs, wracking their bodies with horrible hacking coughs.

DeWitt raises his shuddering arm, about to fire off a shot, when Elizabeth stays him by raising an arm of her own. "Don-ehhukk-don't." she sputters. "You might- you might-" She tries to finish her sentence but trails off into more bouts of painful coughing.

"The dame's got a point." a muffled voice says from above. "We got enough guns an' ammo in here to take down any of Ryan's goons come looking for us."

"Take 'em in the back." another voice says, and someone drags them away as it all goes dark.

* * *

" _Elizabeth..."_   _There's a warmth in that voice that the other him could never hope to imitate._

" _Booker?" She can almost see him. "Oh god..._ Booker... _I...I missed you so much...!"_

" _I know." And now she can see him, can see that smile that crept up on his face as he hobbled along through Battleship Bay. Suddenly it changes; it's the smile he wore as she pushed him away into the new world, the world she could (or would) not be a part of, a loving sad smile full of thousands upon thousands of 'I'm sorry's. "It's time to get up."_

* * *

And just like that the dream is over. She finds herself awakening in a small dimly-lit room. Given the habits of mafiosos and mobsters, it was probably designed like this. She registers a noise nearby and blearily looks toward it. DeWitt is stirring as well. They're both tied to chairs. She feels sure she could get free given time, but time, for once, is not on her side.

"Look who's finally awake." a gravelly voice says. Two figures turn to look at her, makeshift gas masks hanging down around their necks. One is tall and slender, a long aquiline nose the only feature she can make out in the dim light. The other is even taller and incredibly well-muscled, almost inhumanly so. The shorter one speaks. His is the gravel-voice from before. "You mind telling us how you got in here?" he asks.

"Evans must've sold us out." his partner says. His voice is smoother, but scrapes the edges of audibility, occasionally delving down into a bone-rattling growl.

"I'm talking to the lady." Gravel-Voice says. He walks over in front of her. "Is that right?" he asks almost kindly. "Did Evans sell us out?"

Elizabeth straightens in her chair, regarding him with the same haughty aloofness she'd used in Rapture proper. "I make it a point not to do business with people who won't tell me their names." she says. "The sign out front said 'Tom and Dave's', so...which is which?"

Gravel-Voice grins. "Tom Alexander." he says. "Dave, introduce yourself!"

"Dave." Dave rumbles, adding "Williams" as an afterthought.

"There we go." Tom says with a smile. "Now it's your turn to ante up. What are  _your_  names?"

DeWitt speaks up for the first time. "Surprised y' didn't recognize me, Tom; it's Booker DeWitt. Almost got ya inta some trouble over at Sir Prize."

"Is that right?" Tom glances over. "Well I'll be!" He chuckles aloud. "Fancy running into you down here of all places!" His expression darkens, only a hair. "Runs in my mind that was the same night you lost your little girl. Wonder what happened to her..."

DeWitt's sardonic half-smile fades. Satisfied, Tom turns back to Elizabeth. "Don't remember seeing you before. And I'd  _remember_ a good-looking woman such as yourself." Elizabeth gazes back at him impassively. "You got a name?" Tom prompts her.

"Of course" is all she says.

Tom sighs. "And here I thought we were getting along." he complains. "But we're getting sidetracked here." His eyes harden. "Who are you working for? Atlas?  _Ryan?_ " His tone indicates he doesn't think that very likely.

"She works f'r me." DeWitt says. Elizabeth cranes her neck to look past Tom and right at DeWitt in surprise. "An' who I'm workin' for is none of yer business. I WILL say it ain't Atlas OR Ryan, if it helps any."

Dave looks dubious. "He wasn't in here with the rest of us when Ryan set this place adrift."

Now it's Tom's turn to seem doubtful. "You know what Dave, you're right. And I'd bet money on it she wasn't either." There's no mistaking it; their suspicions have been aroused. "So you came down  _later_... Probably very recently... And you break in to _this_ shop? Why?" Tom shakes his head wonderingly. "Why, why, why...?" He rubs his chin with his right hand, as if in thought, then pulls his hand away to gaze at it. He obviously fancies himself an actor. A sudden electric current appears between his fingers, Unable to help herself, Elizabeth lets out a faint cry of distress. Tom looks at her, a cruel smile playing about his lips. "Not a fan of Electro Bolt, I take it?" he asks. Her eyes are wide, wider than DeWitt's ever seen them. Her breathing comes fast and heavy.

"Hey!" he shouts. "She's got nothin' to do with this! You hear me?!"

Dave glares down at him. "Pipe down, dick." he growls.

Elizabeth is beyond hearing. In her mind, she's taken back to a time she'll never leave behind. It doesn't matter if the universe has forgotten. SHE can't. December 23rd, nineteen hundred and twelve.  _"The procedure should help immensely with the ... issues we've had with the girl. Once the device is implanted, any effort on her part to ...alter the state of things will emit a most painful electric shock. Pavlov made a dog salivate. We'll make this one weep."_

DeWitt struggles against his bonds as Tom moves in closer to Elizabeth, bringing his electrified hand up as if to caress her cheek. It's no use. Dave knows his stuff, and besides, he doubts he'd be able to make it over to Elizabeth in time. "All right!" he yells at last. Tom stops mid-motion. His eyes flicker to his left. "I'll tell you what you wanna know." DeWitt says hoarsely.

Tom smiles his usual charming smile once again. "There." he says pleasantly. "That wasn't so hard!" But as he's straightening up, Elizabeth makes her move. She'd opened a quiet little tear behind her back, and something somewhere had loosened her bonds. Now she brings her foot up into Thomas Alexander's groin. It would have hurt more had she stuck to wearing the heels, but testicles will be testicles and Alexander doubles over in agony. She grabs the pistol he'd confiscated from DeWitt from his pocket as he crumples, turns Dave into a block of ice with Winter Blast before he has a chance to react and hobbles over on stiff and aching limbs to the astonished DeWitt.

"How did you-"

She cuts him off. "We don't have time for that!" she says as she begins work on his restraints. The ropes are knotted tight. She doesn't think she can untie them in the scant few seconds before the mobsters regain their footing, and some part of her doesn't feel like leaving him alone at their mercy, never mind why, so she does the only other thing she can think of. She points the pistol at the knot and pulls the trigger. The report echoes painfully about the room. The recoil makes her yelp and drop the gun.

"Have you lost your mind?" DeWitt demands. Then, seeing Alexander rolling over onto his front and pushing himself up on his hands and knees, "Go! Get out of here!"

There doesn't seem to be anything else to do, so she leaves. "I got the girl!" Tom shouts as he scrambles out the door after Elizabeth. Dave, who has only just thawed, starts to follow him, then remembers they had another 'guest' in the room. He turns, but DeWitt has shaken off the last of the ropes and reached behind him to get the gun. He points it right at Dave's over-muscled chest.

"Here's the deal." he says, breathing faster due to his recent exertions and the adrenaline pumping through his veins. "You let me leave, I let you live. Least until we get outside."

"Hah. That peashooter?" Dave scoffs. "I spliced up with Armored Shell first chance I got. Think you can pull the trigger faster than I can come over there and break your fingers?"

"Don't come any closer and we won't have t' find out." DeWitt replies, and there's a look in his face that makes even the hardened mobster think twice. He's seen rape, torture, murder, arson and done his share besides, but him...he's seen  _war_. Dave lets the man leave, then makes straight for the back room and the top-rack stuff.


	16. Cleaning Their Clock

DeWitt makes his way out of the store. He passes Alexander fiddling with a deactivated security bot.  _Just what we needed,_ he thinks grimly to himself. _Somethin' else tryin' t' kill us._  Alexander jerks his head around as DeWitt runs past, and he makes sure to deck him right on the chin for threatening Elizabeth. The mobster reels and slumps over the counter, dazed but not yet out. DeWitt hurries out the front doors before they can fully open, his momentary confusion over where Elizabeth had gone vanishing as quickly as it'd come when he sees her beckoning to him from the top of a building across the street. "How am I supposed t' get up there?" he demands of no one in particular. He makes his way to the foot of the building, a pile of debris to his right taking on greater significance as he realizes he can climb atop it and join her on the rooftop. Holstering his gun, he begins the ascent. Once or twice, the twisted metal beneath him lurches or sags, causing his heart to leap into his throat, where it remains until he makes it behind the sandbags next to Elizabeth. Time is of the essence, so before he has a chance to settle in, he dives back out again to knock some of the rubble loose in case Tom or Dave decide to join them.

The only sound to be heard is that of their labored breathing, but not for long. Music blasts out from the ornate speakers on the front of Tom and Dave's shop: the fourth movement of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E minor, 'From the New World.' As if on cue, the mobsters burst out through the front doors, with Alexander's hacked security bot whirring loudly behind him. As the music swells, they catch sight of their quarry and open fire. Dave has a shotgun, incongruously small in his meaty hands, raised against his shoulder, hardly deigning to acknowledge the recoil after every shot. Tom has DeWitt's old tommy gun which he uses to spray the front of the building with bullets.

The security bot beeps repeatedly as it rises to the rooftops. Tom stops shooting and motions for Dave to do the same. The machine swivels and locks on to its targets. The moment it's about to start shooting however, Elizabeth lashes out with Winter Blast, encasing it in a block of ice and sending it plummeting down to the street. Most of the ice shatters on impact, and the bot takes a little while to warm up again, which Elizabeth and DeWitt take as an opportunity to find some more suitable cover, dodging renewed fire from the mobsters along the way.

Crouching low so they can't be seen from street level, DeWitt grips his pistol with a girmace. "Don't suppose you have anything in those tears that might help us out...?" he asks his partner, and he realizes that's what she's become to him now.

Elizabeth had been hoping not to have to use any more of her powers just yet, but it seems unavoidable. Reluctantly, she holds out her hands and pulls at the fabric of the worlds. She can't help but flinch as Tom fires off a few more rounds into the air. Perhaps that's why what happens next happens at all. There's a flash of light and an odd container appears before her. When opened, it is revealed to contain something vaguely similar to DeWitt's Mauser in shape and size, but sleek and silver, with strange colored lights along the top and sides. "What is that?" DeWitt asks.

"I don't know." she admits. "It looks like a gun of some sort though." She picks it up hesitantly and aims it at the wall. When she pulls the trigger, a beam of blue light shoots out and scorches a perfectly circular hole into the concrete, causing her to yelp in surprise. The device tumbles from her hands.

"How d' you figure that?" DeWitt demands sarcastically. She colors faintly. "Whatever it is, save it for later. If there  _is_  a later..." he adds under his breath. The gunfire from below has subsided for the moment, and the bot buzzes loudly back into view. He shoots at it a couple times. It shoots back. He keeps on firing, doing his best to ignore the bullets whizzing past, too close for comfort, until the machine bursts into flames and explodes. The noise of the explosion drowns out a roar from close by. Dave charges in, having found his own way up, and knocks DeWitt flat on his back with a hefty punch. He tries to reach his gun, which had clattered away when he hit the ground, but Dave puts a foot on his arm and pins it down.

He points the massive barrel of his shotgun into DeWitt's chest, saying with a stone-faced glare, "If it helps, the girl's gonna get it cleaner than you." The girl in question reaches for a gun of her own, the bizarre-looking one from earlier, and with only a moment's hesitation trains it right on the side of Dave's head and pulls the trigger once more. He yells and drops the shotgun, clasping his hands over the wound. "AGH! Dammit!" DeWitt fumbles with the shotgun for a moment while the mobster is distracted. He manages to get ahold of it and ironically fires off a shot directly into Dave's chest. At this range, not even his Armored Shell gene tonics could save him. He staggers back. DeWitt shoots him again. One last blast of buckshot sends him over the edge of the building to land with a thud a second later.

"Dave!" Alexander shouts, sliding another drum of ammunition into his tommy gun. Then, as if thinking better of it, he dashes back into the shop.

Shaking, Elizabeth lowers the weapon to her side. "Is he giving up?" she asks, even though she doesn't believe it.

"Maybe. Or maybe he's hopin' we'll come in after him." DeWitt replies. "I've had enough runnin' into ambushes t' last me a while; let's try and wait 'im out."

Getting down proves to be significantly easier, if more stressful, than getting up. DeWitt hops straight down, even though it's at least a six foot drop, with only a grunt to show he'd felt anything at all. Elizabeth is close behind, though she winces as the shock from the impact travels up her legs. She takes some comfort in the fact that, had she not decided to switch shoes at the boutique, it would have been significantly worse. At the very least she might have turned an ankle!

He crouches near where she'd seen him what feels like hours ago now, though in truth it could be as little as half of one hour. (Local time obviously; she knows very well how relative it can be.) She stands next to the door, trying to prepare herself for the act of taking another life. Suddenly it opens. All she can see is one of Alexander's arms throwing something across the street. "Grenade!" DeWitt shouts as he dives away from the little object that comes to rest a few scant inches from him. Alexander is already reaching for another one when Elizabeth turns around the corner and aims directly at his chest. He stops mid-movement.

"Give me one reason to use this..." she growls. He glares balefully at her, but makes no attempt to resist when DeWitt comes up from behind her and takes his box of grenades. He puts it behind the counter where Alexander won't be able to get at it very easily. She beckons him to step into the shop where she can keep a closer eye on him while DeWitt goes through the mobsters' stash. She notices he's limping as he makes his way into the back room, making a dispassionate note to ask about shrapnel wounds when they have the time.

He whistles. "Where the hell'd you find all  _this_?" he asks.

"Around" is all Tom says in return.

DeWitt comes out with a revolver in his hand. "Webley Mark IV." he muses, inspecting the chamber. "Don't mind if I do." Elizabeth turns to look, her finger already upon the trigger, but DeWitt gets there first. Alexander lunges toward her, trying to capitalize on her apparent inattentiveness, but his head snaps to the side as a bullet from DeWitt's new Webley slams into his skull. He crumples awkwardly to the floor. "Shouldn't have gone for it." DeWitt mutters.

"I don't think he cared whether he'd live or die." Elizabeth says, unable to keep the last traces of amazement at human conduct out of her voice.

"Nothin' more dangerous than a man with nothin' left t' lose." DeWitt replies. "Let's see what we c'n find in back."

The back room is aclutter with guns of nearly every shape and size from the last half-century. Cartons of ammo, clumsily hand-labeled to compensate for the faded logos, are piled further back. They show evidence of recent upheaval, no doubt due to Dave's frantic search a few minutes earlier. "Left the Mauser on the rooftop." DeWitt remarks as he loads up the new shotgun.

"That's too bad." Elizabeth says without an ounce of sincerity.

"Yeah?" She meets his inquisitive glance with an impassive stare. Only the faintest curve of her eyebrows indicates her displeasure. "Guess you're right. Might be time t' move on-"

But suddenly there are sounds of a commotion outside. Sounds of guns firing, of Plasmids roaring through the air, men and women shouting things that get jumbled up together, and above all of it, a little girl screaming for help. "Put me DOWN! NO! Somebody help!" The voice has something  _wrong_  about it, but DeWitt would recognize it anywhere.

"Sally!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay with this one. Action sequences are not my forte, and my new computer has been distracting me something awful the past few months.


	17. A Case of Mistaken Identity

As the doors open, a shot rings out and a woman in a blue scalloped dress topples to the floor. Something tries to crawl from underneath her, but something else rushes past and snatches it up, leaving a horrible echoing shriek in their combined wake.

“Give her back!” DeWitt charges after the fleeing figure. The thought of being this close only to fail is nearly more than he can bear. He doesn't even care when two more splicers show up brandishing machine guns, only raises the shotgun to his shoulder and prepares to squeeze the trigger.

But an explosion close by sends him flying into a building. He lies there gasping, the wind knocked clean out of him, as inhuman shapes dart here and there in the billowing smoke, and he wonders how strange it is that he doesn't find this strange at all now, being trapped in a shopping complex at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean with thugs and monsters and shooting fire from his hands.

Over the sound of his coughs and the ringing in his ears, he can dimly make out Elizabeth calling his name. “Mr DeWitt!”

“Booker.” he groans. “Where is she?”

“Ryan's men have her. They're taking her to the submarine bay at the far end of the department store. We have to get moving!”

“I said call me Booker.” he grumbles as he drags himself to his feet. “This ain't a cocktail party.” To his surprise, she runs along beside him in silence. He'd been hoping for a snappy comeback out of her, something to help lighten the mood.

Splicers are pouring out of the darkness all around, scrambling and gibbering madly. DeWitt finds himself pulled along with them, partaking in their frenzy, heedless of what may come, at least until Elizabeth hauls him up short. “What?” he growls.

“If we keep going, we'll just end up shot with the rest of them!” she says. “We need a better plan if we want to get to Sally.”

He scowls, but realizes that she's right. They duck into an alley and wait for the splicers to pass them by. Some of them are howling something about ADAM. “I can smell it! Juicy fresh and ripe for the taking!” one of them screams. All DeWitt can smell is the stench of seawater. When the coast is clear, he leads her out of the alley and after the mob, following from a safe distance.

Soon they come across a hastily-erected barricade outside what seems to be a bathysphere shop. The splicers are swarming all over it, but Ryan's men are giving as good as they get. One of them unleashes a torrent of fire from a long cylindrical device he holds in his hands, while another stands ready to replace the tank of gas on his back. A third raises something to his shoulder, though it's impossible to tell what from the profile, and fires. A splicer flies backward, dead. “Makes you wonder why Ryan didn't just have 'em do this in th' first place.” DeWitt mutters. Elizabeth fights back revulsion at the almost mechanical slaughter. The fact that the victims are all drug-addled psychopaths only helps a little.

Little by little, the pack begins to thin, though not without costing Ryan's men dearly. By the end, there are only three of them standing, compared to the ten or so there had been when DeWitt and Elizabeth arrived. “There'll be more.” one of them is saying. “Let's get back to Cyrus. This operation's a bust.”

“Shows what you know.” another scoffs quietly. “I heard the kid took to the last of the bodies they brought her like a fish takes to water.”

“Well we ain't gonna know until we get in there.” the first one says. “And be sure ya lock that door behind ya. Don't want all my hard work going to waste cause you were in a hurry.”

“ _Your_ hard work??” Despite their helmets and gas-masks, they continue to bicker as they close the doors behind them. The resulting _click_ echoes throughout the room, then all falls into silence.

“We have to get in there, and get Sally.” DeWitt says. He boils with barely-contained anger.

“Do you really think we stand a chance against all those men?” Elizabeth asks in pretend concern.

“Don't have much choice, do we?” He gets to his feet. “Let's put those lockpickin' skills to use again.” They make their way across the barricade, picking their way around the corpses of Ryan's men and fallen splicers alike. There don't seem to be any women working for Ryan Security, at least not this detachment. Elizabeth leans in to focus on the door and DeWitt is struck by something that, in retrospect, he should have noticed some time ago. “Your hair's changing color.” he remarks.

“Really?” She doesn't even spare half a moment to glance at it. “Must be the ADAM.”

“Guess so.” He pauses for a moment, then continues. “Guess you'll be able to take that thimble off too.”

“Some wounds not even ADAM can mend” is her cryptic reply. The hint of a sigh in her voice stirs up half-forgotten memories that don't entirely fade away as she opens the door as quietly as she can and urges him inside. The large glass showcases inside have been cracked open, the state-of-the-art bathyspheres within thoroughly dismantled to prevent any of the prisoners mounting an escape attempt with them. DeWitt whistles softly when he spies a price tag. Elizabeth shushes him. There are voices up ahead.

“Mr Gale, the fact is we're running out of munitions. Roscoe here took a look at the manifest before we came down, and there are still way too many potential splicers left for us to handle.”

“That's right.” someone agrees. “Even if most of 'em are out of EVE, they can still overwhelm us with sheer numbers.”

“You've made your point.” a third man says, presumably Mr Gale. “We'll head back to Rapture and give the girl to Suchong. Have him run those damn tests himself; there's gotta be a better way of doing this.”

DeWitt tenses when he hears Gale's next words. “There's only ten of us left now. We'll have to be extra careful. You two go and get the girl. Gordon, Bailey, you'll get the bathysphere ready. The rest of you, set up another perimeter so those lunatics don't get a chance to ambush us on our way out.”

“This man is smart.” Elizabeth murmurs as the group begins to split up. “Too bad for us.”

“Can't outsmart his clothes catchin' on fire.” DeWitt murmurs back. Elizabeth bites back her reply, reminding herself this is not _her_ Booker DeWitt. Instead, she follows this one outside. Once there, crouching in the shadows beyond the barricade, DeWitt says, “Gonna need a hell of a diversion if we want t' get close enough t' grab the girl.”

“Leave that to me.” Elizabeth replies. “You make sure you get her out of there.”

“An' what about me?” Her silence is all the response he needs. He sighs. “Okay. On three. One...”

Elizabeth's mind is already racing. The possibilities are literally endless. She settles on something with history, something her DeWitt had come across at the Finkton docks, thanks to her younger self.

“Two...”

It takes her a little while longer to find it again, then her eyes dart about the room for a place to put it. DeWitt says “Three!” and she opens the door. Not a tear as they had been before; tears imply a lack of control. She has all the control in the world, for all the good it's done her.

The silence is split by the din of a marching band, only partly in this world so they won't come to any harm, the same way they had been in Columbia. She hadn't consciously done it then, but she had this time, and she tries not to think too hard about _how_. The doors of the bathysphere shop fly open and Ryan's men come storming out.“What the hell is happening?” one of them demands.

“Sounds like a damn marching band!”

“Yeah but here??”

“You five go check it out. The rest of you, with me. Let's get that sphere up and running!” Everyone hastens to obey. Two of the men who were chosen to stay behind begin to warm up the bathysphere. One occasionally shouts instructions to the other, who clambers around the outside of the hull with an uncomfortably inhuman yet familiar gait. The other two raise their weapons and peer warily into the darkness. DeWitt tenses, one hand holding the revolver, the other the skyhook. The man in charge is only about as tall as Elizabeth. From his silhouette in the dim light, she can see that his moustache is thick and white, like someone else she knew... or knows. The anger bubbles back up to the surface. She can hardly breathe. The covered cage on the ground next to him as he shouts instructions only makes it worse.

DeWitt opens fire, unable to wait any longer. His first shot takes one of the guards in the neck. He goes down, spluttering and struggling for breath that soon ceases to come. The second guard swivels around and manages to get off a couple shots before he too goes down. Cyrus throws a glance over his shoulder. Seeing just one armed man take down two of his, he grabs the cage in both hands and dashes for the bathysphere. “Give her back! Sally!” DeWitt is hot on his heels, but he slips on the cage's cover, which had fluttered to the ground in Cyrus' wake, giving Cyrus the opportunity to make it into the bathysphere.

“Let's get out of here!” he shouts to his subordinates. They begin to cast off, but DeWitt hurls himself into the cabin. Elizabeth watches mutely from the shore. _This is it_ , she realizes. The thought gives her no satisfaction.

Cyrus and DeWitt are locked in a struggle over the cage. DeWitt manages to get it open before Cyrus elbows him in the face. “She's got to come with me!” he cries, though the blood is running freely from his nose.

“She's not your child any more! You have no claim on her!”

“She is now! SALLY!” He punches Cyrus in the stomach. Cyrus doubles over, then sprawls across the seat, letting DeWitt get up. Pointing his revolver at the other two men beside him, he leans in closer to the cage. “Sally? Sally; it's Booker. You can come out now; I'm gonna take you home.” Something shifts around in the far back. DeWitt fishes in his pocket and pulls out the porcelain doll head. “Sally? Look, it's Sarah! She's come all this way to see you.”

All it takes is one look to take in her emaciated frame, her ashen gray skin and her eyes... Those eyes... “Sally...” She reaches out and grabs the doll's head, moments before Cyrus punches DeWitt squarely in the jaw, sending him reeling. He's barely conscious of the dismissive shove that pushes him out into the ice cold water of the makeshift bay.

_Cold, like the rain that pours in from the hole in the wall as he wrestles with a man who makes a mockery of his face. Brown hair instead of white, yellow skin; a Chinaman in his ancestry, or liver failure from the drink?_

“ _Give her back to me!” the fake man screams. DeWitt...not DeWitt,_ Comstock _screams back at him. Everyone's screaming, the Luteces, the baby, even the woman beside him that he can't remember how he forgot._

“ _You're hurting her!” she pleads with him, her eyes full of desperation._

“ _It won't hurt for long!” he tells her. And it doesn't. She never felt a thing as the man on the other side pulled just a little bit harder...as the hole snapped shut..._

“She wasn't yours Comstock.” Elizabeth says some time later, from far away. “I wasn't. But you had to have me didn't you? You had-” She stops, her words choked off by rising emotion.

He opens his eyes and finds himself staring at the ceiling. He props himself up on his elbows and looks around for her. She's gazing down into the water. Her forearms are dripping. She must've pulled him out. _Why?_ “Elizabeth... Child... I'm sorry...”

“Be quiet.” she growls. “You don't deserve to talk to me.” Then it's her turn to round on him. “Why couldn't you be more like HIM?” she demands, tears running down her face. “Why couldn't you be more like any of the other Comstocks I've seen??”

All he understands of the matter is what he says. “You brought me here to die.” he says wearily. He holds up his revolver. “Then finish it.”

She looks at it, shaking her head unconsciously. She almost looks afraid of it. She takes out her new weapon with trembling hands and points it at him. But before she can pull the trigger...

“Drop your weapons! Both of you!” The abandoned security personnel is surrounding them, aiming an astonishing arsenal at both Elizabeth and Comstock. Despite herself, Elizabeth is taken by surprise. _It wasn't supposed to end like this,_ she thinks desperately.

Then she remembers who she is. Violently, almost reflexively, she opens a Tear. In the split second after it opens, before everyone's heads have had a chance to turn, she looks at Comstock. _He hasn't suffered enough_ is what she tries to tell herself as she pulls him along.


	18. Separation, Anxiety

Despite its name, The 13th Muse Pub has very little to do with Sander Cohen and his ilk, something which Elizabeth had been very grateful for when she and her companion arrived. It's simply one of many of Rapture's establishments catering to the wealthy middle-class. Tables and chairs are liberally spread throughout the room and there are special discounts available at the bar, which always means there's a line outside the door well before the pub opens.

Elizabeth's dramatic entrance earlier merely turned a few heads, some of which continue to glance in her direction even after several minutes have elapsed. Part of her is still flattered by the attention, while part of her wants to do unspeakable things to them for the way they seem to leer at her body. She fights back horror at how dark her thoughts have become of late and focuses on her anger while she waits for Comstock to regain consciousness.

Time passes; she doesn't know how much; but still he remains unconscious. She gets to her feet and begins to wander the room. She has to force herself not to sway her hips in the fashionable Rapture way; she shudders to think what she might do if someone were to reach out a hand...

“Got that Teleportation Plasmid huh sweetie?” someone asks. “Don't know how those brainiacs come up with this stuff. 'Genetic proximity and duplication characteristics'? It's all Greek to me.”

She ignores them. A calendar upon the wall indicates they've arrived in January of 1959, about two weeks after they left the department store. She frowns. She usually has better control over her Tears than that. Though given their nature, a slip-up every now and again is understandable. _What do I do now?_ she wonders. _I could have killed him. I SHOULD have killed him. But now...?_ Strictly speaking, she can do whatever she wants. But what DOES she want?

* * *

The first thing he notices is the pleasant warmth that permeates his body. Odd. He hadn't expected to feel anything again. Maybe the fires of hell take a while to get going. Or maybe they're lulling him into a false sense of complacency, just as she had done. He opens his eyes. He's looking at fire all right, but it's small and contained beneath a stone mantlepiece. “Awake at last.” she observes from somewhere to his right. She's seated in the chair across from him. Her gaze pierces him to the bone.

“Elizabeth-” he begins.

“No.” she says flatly.

“All right... What do I call you then; Anna?”

Her eyes blaze. Her hands arch with rage against the arms of the chair. _“Definitely_ not.” she replies with considerable restraint, entertaining the notion of having him refer to her as Mademoiselle DeWitt before dismissing it. “We'll come back to that.” She folds her arms and settles back into her chair in an effort to relax.

He struggles for words. “Where...are we?” he manages to ask.

“Cameron Suites.” she replies. “The 13th Muse Pub, to be exact. Want something to drink?”

“No, I- I gave that up.”

“You gave up a lot of things, apparently. Smoking, drinking, gambling, regret...”

“No.” he says. “I regretted losing Sally. I regretted...losing you.” Was it _really_ her though? “But that is no way to live your life. I had to be better than that.”

“So you ran away??” Elizabeth is furious. “You...wrote my name on your hand as some half-hearted attempt at penance?”

Comstock is about to open his mouth to respond, and just like that, Elizabeth realizes she doesn't have to listen to him any more. So she doesn't. She gets up and leaves before he can make her even angrier.

* * *

She's halfway down the tunnel before she discovers that he isn't following her. It makes her unaccountably sad somewhere down inside, which quickly turns into white-hot anger so intense that she's barely able to keep from screaming out loud. She pounds the wall with her fist, drawing strange looks from passersby. “ADAM withdrawal.” a gray-haired lady mutters to her companion, who nods disapprovingly. Elizabeth knows she hasn't taken enough to be suffering from withdrawal, but that doesn't help her feel any less shaky. She doesn't realize that she's started walking until she stops in front of a Gatherer's Garden. The smiling plastic faces of the Little Sisters make her think of the doll head Comstock carried around with him, and of Sally... She could really go for a Plasmid right now, or a Gene Tonic. Natural Camouflage and invisibility seem more appealing by the second.

“What am I doing?” she asks suddenly. She backs away from the machine and its promises of genetic modification and finds herself face to face with a short, slightly overweight man with a receding hairline and a pencil-thin mustache.

“Evening miss.” he says. “Hope I don't need to introduce myself.”

She's seen his face around the city; few people haven't. “Mister Sullivan.” she says in return. “You work for Ryan Security.”

“I run Ryan Security.” he corrects her. “I been told to keep an eye out for a young lady matching your description. Wanted for questioning with regard to an attack on some of my men.”

“And what if I say you've got the wrong girl?”

He smiles, with a touch of apprehension in his large sad eyes. “I hope you won't.”

Elizabeth is, of course, aware that she's been surrounded while they talked. They hadn't been very quiet. But at least an interview might give her something to do. “There are certain similarities with what's going on in Rapture as a whole.” she says pointedly. “Still it's not as though I have a _choice_ in the matter. Lead the way.”

* * *

The bathysphere station is on the 'ground' floor of the Cameron Suites, so they have quite a walk ahead of them. Elizabeth considers opening a Tear and whisking them all there, or perhaps further, in the blink of an eye, but that would cause more problems than it would solve _and_ make any future business she has here far more complicated. So she walks a few paces ahead of Sullivan in silence. She spies a large tan poster of a man in working-class overalls, with a caption that reads _Who Is Atlas?_ As she watches some of the security detail ripping it down shred by shred, Elizabeth wonders what good it would do to tell anyone the answer to that. “I'm surprised the locals didn't get to it first.” Sullivan remarks to no one in particular. “He's not very popular after the bombings on New Year's Eve.”

“Neither is Ryan.” She had meant to make it dry and cynical, like she had been more often than not with Comstock, but it just comes out as honest.

Sullivan purses his lips. He takes a step closer and mutters something. “You might wanna keep that kinda thing to yourself from now on.” She looks at him, surprised he would say that to a suspect, but she bites back whatever she might have said when she sees the officers are on their way back.

“Never seen one of those this high up before.” one says.

“And you probably never will again.” Sullivan replies. “Come on.”

There's a moment's hesitation at the top of a long spiral staircase while everyone struggles to decide who's going first. Elizabeth wordlessly takes the first step and looks up at Sullivan and his six escorts, an expression of sardonic amusement on her face. They frown and hurry to keep up with her.

On the second flight, someone throws a bottle at one of the officers as they're making their way through a crowded room. Amid a handful of screams and mild panic, Sullivan dispatches a few of his men in a futile attempt to corral the crowd and ask questions. To his credit, it doesn't take long for him to realize how pointless would be to continue, and he beckons to them to move on.

Finally they reach the dock, where a familiar-looking vehicle is waiting for them. Sullivan eyes Elizabeth carefully as he says, “Picked this one up from one of Fontaine's shops before we set the place adrift. Look familiar?”

“Yes.” she says truthfully. “It looks like a bathysphere.” She steps inside to wait for them.


	19. Interview, Not Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on a roll lately. Hope it doesn't go away.

Elizabeth taps her foot while she waits. She's impatient, true, but she can't get the tune from the pub out of her head. At one point, she finds herself humming a piece of it and grins. _Ironic, as the name of the song IS Humming To Myself._ The smile is still on her face as Sullivan comes in. “Glad to see you're enjoying yourself.” he says dryly.

She makes sure he sits down before she does, even though he extends a hand towards her seat as a matter of courtesy; a bit of actual psychology she picked up somewhere in the six months of Comstock House. “I wouldn't have thought cells like this were still in use with all the ADAM abusers about.” she observes.

He sets the thin sheaf of papers down on the table, busying himself with straightening them before he answers. “We've got different facilities for them.” he says. His tone implies a certain disdain or displeasure associated with those facilities. “This is just a talk.”

“A talk you felt the need to bring notes for?”

Sullivan smiles again. _He smiles too much,_ Elizabeth thinks. _I wonder if he even notices._ “I wanted to be sure and get my facts straight. It's a hell of a case.” He lifts up the first paper and peers at it. “Someone matching your description was seen at the Fontaine Department Store sometime on Christmas Day. She and an associate attacked some of my men before disappearing into thin air.” He grimaces. “There was a time when that in and of itself would've been unusual. But we're just here about the assault.” He sets the paper aside and picks up another. “The associate appeared to be interested in an, ah, item the team had been guarding, calling to it by name.” Then he looks up at her. “You have anything to say about all this?”

It's Elizabeth's turn to smile. “There must be hundreds of young white girls in this city. What was it about this one that matches my description so exactly?”

“Hair and outfit mostly.” he admits. He gestures at her right hand. “The surviving witnesses couldn't be sure, but they mentioned a sort of adornment on one of the fingers on her right hand.”

She covers it self-consciously. “They're all the rage in Paris. At least they were when I left.” It wouldn't do to think too much about the dream she had; it _was_ just a dream, after all...

“Uh huh.” He continues looking at her. “You realize nothing you've said has actually ruled you out, right?”

“The burden of proof is on the prosecution.” she says.

“Maybe in the U.S. of A,” he says. “But we ain't there any more.” He leans back in his chair. “You realize, under Rapture law, there's nothing to keep me from detainin' you for more questioning.”

Elizabeth has had quite enough of being in a cage. She sighs. “The Teleport plasmid has an effective recall range of about a hundred meters. Beyond that, the signal is too weak to facilitate a transfer. You could end up stuck in a wall, or worse: another person.” Sullivan has to keep from looking impressed. “I don't know where Mr Ryan put that department store, but if it was within eyesight of Rapture, you can bet there'd be even more rioting than there already is.” She could go on, but she suddenly finds herself tiring of the whole charade. “I trust you don't need me to put two and two together.”

“No.” Sullivan says slowly. “You know an awful lot about the plasmid business, Miss...?”

“Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth...?”

“Just Elizabeth.” She really should come up with a family name to keep this from happening so often.

“All right 'Elizabeth'.” he says, and takes a deep breath. “I'm arresting you on suspicion of aggravated assault against Ryan Industries. If you have any personal effects you'd like to have brought to you, you can make up a list and we'll send an officer along to your residence at the earliest possible opportunity.”

“Just like that?” This certainly puts a damper on her evening. “Don't I get a phonecall?” she asks.

“Sure you get a phonecall.” Sullivan says, standing up. “I'll phone ahead to let 'em know you're coming.” Elizabeth has a very childlike urge to stick her tongue out at him. Undeterred, he opens the door for her.

“I've got to put this file back.” he tells her. “Take a seat. I won't be a minute.”

“One moment.” she says. He turns back, reluctantly. “How did you know where to find me?” she asks, leaving unspoken the fact that even she hadn't known for sure where they'd end up.

“Anonymous tip” is all he says. No sooner has he disappeared into the back room, however, then an explosion rocks the lobby of the police station. The lights are blown out, and Elizabeth, along with everyone else in the room, is knocked to the ground by the shockwave. Amidst the screams and shouting, she sees the police officer behind the desk go for his gun. He's almost ripped apart by a hail of bullets.

Someone steps forward out of the smoking hole that has been blasted through the wall, his features obscured by the light hitting him from behind. “See if any of Ryan's thugs are still breathing. If they are, make 'em stop if you want. If not, just grab their weapons and tell 'em to hold tight until we leave.” As a group of similarly masked figures sweep into the room, one of the civilians speaks up.

“You're with Atlas and his band of hooligans, aren't you?”

The man laughs. “You might say that.”

“Well I think what you're doing to this city is despicable! We were getting along fine before him and Fontaine started picking fights with Ryan!” There's a murmur of agreement from the other hostages before someone else joins in.

“O' course _you_ were gettin' along fine,” it says, Irish brogue dripping from every word. “Yer one of the Fort Frolic folk. I'll bet you never had to do a day of actual work in your entire loife.” If the civilians' agreement was a murmur, the revolutionaries' is a dull growl. “You've had yer chance. Your koind ran this city into the ground, and the workin'-class along with it!” The growl builds into a roar that is quickly silenced, as if the speaker raised a hand to quiet them.

“Atlas.” Elizabeth murmurs. Again she's tempted to tell the truth about him, but she knows he'd kill everyone in the room to keep his secret safe, and she has enough blood on her hands as it is.

Atlas continues, still hidden somewhere behind his men. “I dunno what you all've heard about what happened New Year's Eve at the Kashmir. But if I know Ryan, it wasn't even half the truth. So if you're tired of feelin' his boot on yer neck, well you come with me an' we'll put a stop to all this. The rest of ya stay put til we're good an' gone and don't try anythin'.”

A few people actually get up and join him. “I stopped too long in front of a poster.” someone says. “In for a penny in for a pound!” The rebels cheer loudly.

Their compatriots return. More than one has what looks to be fresh blood upon them. “Got Ryan's top man Sullivan in the back there.” one of them says, now revealed to be a woman. “Figured you'd want the honors, boss.”

“We're better 'n' that Mary.” Atlas replies. “More important, we're better than him _an'_ his master Ryan. If I kill that man, it'll be fair an' square. Unloike most o' what he's done down here...” The revolutionaries grumble again while Atlas speaks up. “Anyone else volunteerin'?” Then he looks directly at her. “What about you, miss?”

Elizabeth realizes she's still on the ground and gets to her feet. “Thank you, but no.” she says. “I'm...I'm a pacifist.”

There's an uncomfortably loud laugh at that. “A pacifist in Rapture?” Atlas asks incredulously. “Well far be it from me to judge. Good luck with that then.” He seems to gesture to his crew, as they all turn and depart.

Elizabeth stands there, the only one to do so, for a few moments before she realizes this is her chance to escape. She spies her new weapon lying on the floor some distance away and snatches it up, more to keep it out of Ryan's hands than anything. “I need to get out of here.” she murmurs. She rushes over to and then through the main door of the police station. Once she's outside, she hesitates again. The question of what to do looms ahead of her, as does the bulkhead back to the Cameron Suites. But these cramped hallways and crowded rooms have her yearning for the wind against her skin, so she opens a Tear to a more familiar time, if not place.


	20. There Is A Ship

She's back in 1912, a little over 3 months before she is set free the first time. The city of Columbia is somewhere overhead (is it? will it be? can it be?), but for once even Comstock, the _real_ Comstock, if any of them can be considered to be real any more, is innocent of the impending tragedy below, both on and beneath the waves.

She wishes she was innocent. She knows how many people are doomed to die in a few hours' time. She could save them, but that would doom so many more to die in the future...

“When did this become my life?” she asks the stillness of the ocean through the tiny glass porthole. “What right do I have to say who lives and who dies?”

The answer comes almost immediately. “It became your life the moment I sold you.”

And a distant, darker echo: “The moment _I_ accepted you.”

There's only one ship that could change the fate of so many. It bears a name you all know.

Titanic.

* * *

Elizabeth is in cabin C-73, which is strangely empty for this time of night. Perhaps the occupants are out on deck, or visiting friends in another cabin. It doesn't matter. The carpeting underfoot is soft but not too soft, so as not to turn high-class ladies' ankles; light blue with a repeating design of yellow red and blue shapes. The walls are a rich dark wood. No doubt at least one person on board knows what kind of wood it is, but oak, mahogany, maple; wood is still wood, and a feast beyond compare for the microbial lifeforms twelve and a half thousand feet below. Opening the door as quietly as she can, she peers out into the corridor. Seeing no one around, she hurries out and shuts the door behind her, maintaining a quick pace until she's left C-73 behind. The floral patterns on the carpet and walls remind her of the Emporia Towers. She crosses her arms, tucking the weapon at her side in an attempt to conceal it. Not for the first time, she wishes she'd picked something with pockets.

The double doors at the end of the hall take her to a magnificent staircase that takes up much of the room. The white marble floor takes a bit of getting used-to after the carpet. The handfuls of people scattered about who notice her seem taken aback by her appearance, but she pays them no heed, at least until she realizes she has no idea where she's going. “Excuse me.” she says. The people nearby pretend not to notice. She's about to raise her voice and ask again when a steward taps her arm and wordlessly passes her a telegram. Only sixteen words on it: _Café Parisien STOP Up the stairs on your left STOP Stop in for a bite? STOP_

There are only two people who would resort to such a roundabout way of communicating. _On second thought,_ she reflects as she begins her climb up the stairs, _I'm not entirely certain there are only two of them. Or that they're still people any more._ This brings to mind another uncomfortable thought. _What does that make me? Or...or us..._ She can feel her mind slipping away into the expanse of creation. It takes a supreme effort to reign it back in.

When she opens one of the unmarked wood doors, she is greeted by the familiar rhythm of their conversation. “I told you she'd come.”

“No, I told you.”

“We told each other then.”

“Quite probably.”

“Why are you here?” Elizabeth interjects.

“You told us to come.”

“Or you will have.”

“Why are _you_ here?”

That brings her up short. “I...I don't know.”

“Bears thinking about. Take a seat.” She does so, sitting across from the empty space between them and laying the weapon upon her lap. _They probably arranged it like this,_ she thinks to herself. _How much else have they arranged?_

“A theory: You came here now because you deemed it a suitable panorama for the choice you have to make.”

“The uncertainty within.”

“Chocolate or vanilla?”

“What?” she asks.

“Chocolate...or vanilla?”

“Eclairs.”

“Chocolate. No, vanilla. No-” Elizabeth lets out an explosive sigh of frustration. “I don't _know_! Why don't you decide?”

There's a blessed moment of quiet, during which the Luteces regard each other with upraised eyebrows. “Now there's an idea.” Robert muses.

“We could take one of each.” Rosalind suggests.

“But that merely delays the decision.” Robert replies. “We don't partake in it ourselves-”

“That leaves us with two decisions.” Rosalind says. “Which one to take, and which one to leave behind.”

Robert acquiesces. “So it does.”

While they wait for the maitre'd, Elizabeth begins talking to herself, or perhaps to them, though she wouldn't admit it. “I got what I wanted, didn't I? Some sort of closure.”

“If you call that an ending.” Rosalind says. “You left him to look for the girl on his own.”

“With the very real possibility of being killed in the process.”

“Even if he were to succeed-”

“The girl would not be _his_ , but one of the gatherers.”

“I don't care about him.” Elizabeth says. She knows it's a lie even as she says it, with an odd guilty twinge in her stomach, but say it she does.

The maitre'd arrives in the silence that follows. Robert points to the eclairs on the menu, and murmurs something in response to the maitre'd's soft query. When he's gone, Rosalind says something appalling. “You remind me of me.”

“What?” Elizabeth's heart falls into her stomach.

“The recording you found in our labs. I remember being quite ambivalent at the time I made it. If time can be applied to us.”

“The verdict is still out.” Robert adds.

“And now...?” Elizabeth asks, for wont of something to say to avoid thinking any further.

“Now?” Rosalind considers this. “I feel much the same. We've done what we've done, and we must move on.”

“It doesn't do to dwell on the past.” Robert advises. “Particularly one so convoluted as yours.”

“You don't want to take after your father.”

“My father?” Elizabeth laughs to keep from crying. “Which one? I suppose that's the Anna in me, wanting an easy answer like that...”

“Your mistake is in thinking of them as separate people.” Rosalind says as the eclairs arrive. She passes the chocolate to Robert. “To reduce one to their most obvious characteristics is to fail to understand human nature.”

“Heads or tails, it's still part...” He pushes his eclair back across the table. Rosalind pushes hers away as well. “...of a whole.” There's a distinct blurriness about the two desserts. At first Elizabeth fears she might be crying after all, but when she turns her head the blurriness stays put. Then she understands. She reaches out and pulls open the tear. What's left is a melding of the two: swirls of chocolate interlacing with vanilla to form a delicate blend, as beautiful as it is hard to produce. She looks up. The twins, or lovers, or clones but for a single chromosome, nod briefly at her and then vanish.

Elizabeth takes her time eating it. Whatever happens, she's going to need to keep her strength up. All too soon however, the eclair is gone, and so is she.


	21. Where There Are Wills

The transition is not an easy one. One moment Elizabeth is in the lap of luxury aboard a magnificent but doomed ocean liner, the next she's in a tiny cramped sewer somewhere beneath the streets of Rapture. “Eurhhh.” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Why'd I end up _here_?”

Shots ring out not too far away. She tenses reflexively in fright and ducks behind a nearby pillar. A woman with a mess of unruly brown curls, liberally streaked with grey, fires off a couple shots from a revolver at some unseen pursuers and hurries through the gate. Elizabeth recognizes her as possibly the furthest thing from a Splicer possible. It's Bridgette Tenenbaum. Tenenbaum drops her bag on the floor and struggles to lower the gate. “Let me help.” Elizabeth says, hurrying forward.

“I can manage.” Tenenbaum grunts. “But if you would do your best to... hold off the splicers, our odds would be much better.”

Elizabeth looks at her mysterious weapon dubiously. “It's more of a hindrance than an actual threat.” she admits. “But it's better than nothing.” She holds it up in both hands and peers under the gate as it lowers inch by inch. There's one body on the floor outside, but another splicer is on the way. Dragging a metal cudgel along the floor, the thing that used to be a woman shrieks incoherently. Elizabeth squeezes the trigger. A thin beam of blue light shoots out of the tip. The creature shrieks again, batting at the side of her face, newly marred by a vicious red burn. Elizabeth continues depressing the trigger, but the splicer soon manages to fight off the pain and rushes towards her. But the gate is closing faster now. Elizabeth lowers the weapon. “I doubt she's smart enough any more to try sliding under.” she says. Sure enough, the splicer stops right outside. She bangs fruitlessly on the metal gate as it closes entirely.

Tenenbaum lets out a sigh of relief and turns to Elizabeth. “I must thank you for your aid. If you had been one of those splicers, I do not know what would have occurred.” Her English is stiff and formal but more than passable. The older woman grimaces. “Most likely I would be dead, and with me the last hope of rescuing the little ones...”

Elizabeth's eyes widen. “You can cure them?” she asks. They hadn't been her concern before, but they certainly are now.

“Not yet.” Tenenbaum cautions. “Und perhaps never entirely. But I have a theory. And theories are, as you say, better than nothing, yes?” She shoulders her bag once more. “The stink of the sewers offends even me. Let us see if we can find a more accomodating abode.” Elizabeth follows her down a small flight of stairs and into a dimly lit room. “I do not recognize you by face, though in truth I know very few people.” she says, leading the way down another set of steps. “So I hope you will forgive me, but our conversation must take an abrupt turn.” Suddenly she points her revolver at Elizabeth. “How much ADAM have you taken?” she asks harshly.

 _Very abrupt._ “I don't know the exact amount, but... I've only taken Winter Blast.” Elizabeth holds up a frost-coated hand as proof.

“And how much more will you be thinking of taking?”

“Not very much. Where is this going?”

Tenenbaum's voice softens, only a hair. “I am deciding if you are at risk of becoming a splicer. So far, the answer is no. But the more ADAM you take, the more changes will occur.”

Changes. Elizabeth remembers the day her father fell through the roof of her tower. She remembers what she felt like when the Siphon came down. “Whatever changes are in store for me, they're nothing compared to what I've been through.” she says.

Her world-weary tone takes the doctor by surprise. “You seem very sure of that.” Tenenbaum says. Now it's her turn to lower her weapon. “But all things seem to be fluctuating now. You must take care your future is not one of them.”

“If I don't know what the future is, how can I prevent it from changing?” Elizabeth asks. And she doesn't, at least not now. The burden of omniscience seems to grow with every moment she spends with it.

Tenenbaum's lips quirk in a tired smile. “Ach, a philosopher. We would have many hours in conversation if time permitted.” She turns and heads into the darkness beyond the fluttering light of the stairwell. “But I do not think we are so lucky.”

Once again, Elizabeth follows. She finds Tenenbaum in a small room off to the side that's sparsely adorned with furniture: a cot, a desk, a chair, and some cabinets for storage. Tenenbaum sets her bag upon the bed and eases herself into the chair in front of the desk. She rummages in her pockets for a carton of cigarettes. She lights one the old-fashioned way and offers another to Elizabeth. She shakes her head. “I'm trying to quit.” the girl replies.

“Ah. Forgive me.” Tenenbaum stubs it out in an ash-tray. “As I have said, I may be able to develop a cure for the Little Sisters. They undergo...a special kind of... training. Detrimental to their ordinary functions. But it makes them efficient at gathering und metabolizing ADAM.” She raises a hand slightly. “I could develop a Plasmid that reverses some of those changes. Their minds are not so easily changed. They would need years of behavioral therapy to forget all we have taught them.”

 _Behavioral therapy._ Elizabeth remembers her own experience with such methods of treatment. Her stomach knots. “What's-what's holding you back?” she stammers.

“I lack ingredients to make this Plasmid. And subjects on which to try it out.” Tenenbaum appears not to notice Elizabeth's sudden discomfort. “I can take care of some of it myself, but if you are willing, I would appreciate your aid.”

“You might not believe it, but I think that's why I came here.” Elizabeth says. Her powers _are_ a form of wish fulfillment... “Before we get started, I'd like to get out of this dress. Is there somewhere I could change?”

Tenenbaum shakes her head. “I will avert my eyes if you wish. But I have nothing for you to change into.”

“I can take care of that.” Elizabeth holds out her hands and pulls with her mind. There's a flash of light and a dress very much like Lady Comstock's appears in her arms. It's a dark grey instead of vivid blue, but at least it's somewhat familiar.

Tenenbaum's eyes grow wide. “What did you- How is this possible?” Elizabeth wonders if the strange surge of pride she feels is because she succeeded at flapping the unflappable doctor, or merely because she gave her a new experience in a life that has grown dark and stale.

“It's a very long story.” she says with a laugh as she begins to undress. “Let's just say I'm more than a little familiar with the supernatural...”

Tenenbaum clearly has more questions, but she looks away like she promised, gazing out into the depths of the Atlantic. _Did she make the clothes invisible? But no, where would she have put them?_

 


	22. Setting Out Again

It takes Elizabeth quite a while to get dressed. She'd forgotten how irritating doing up one's corset by oneself could be. Tenenbaum is unlikely to have had any experience with them, so she refrains from asking her for help. As she settles the jacket over her shoulders and self-consciously pulls the top of her dress up to conceal her cleavage, Elizabeth considers aloud what to do about her hair. “I've gotten tired of this...” She bats at it, unsure of the word she's looking for. “Whatever this is, this...style.” Tenenbaum turns her head. “You wouldn't happen to know of any others I could try out, or...places I could get it done?”

“I do not think we have time for all of that.” Tenenbaum says a little sharply.

Elizabeth flinches. “I'm sorry,” she says, although she isn't sure that she is. “I guess- I guess I'll be going then.”

“Just a moment.” Tenenbaum says. Elizabeth stops at the door. “Take this, to communicate with me.” She passes Elizabeth a small handheld radio. “And here. This is the list of ingredients you will need to gather. If you manage all of that, perhaps you will be ready to take on a Big Daddy und bring me his little one.” To Elizabeth's surprise and delight, her new dress has _pockets_! The discovery keeps a smile on her face on her way out of Tenenbaum's new lair, her weapon, radio and note from Tenenbaum safely stored within them.

She hesitates at the sewer gate, remembering what had tried to follow the doctor in here. Holding her breath, she listens for any signs of activity outside. _Not that it makes much of a difference,_ she thinks. _Even if she is out there, I've still got to make it out._ She doesn't think she hears anything, but that doesn't mean the splicer couldn't be lying in wait. With shaking hands, she has to struggle to keep turning the wheel. Tenenbaum is stronger than she looks; this thing feels as if it's hardly been used since the city's construction. _Well, I'm also stronger than I look,_ she thinks to herself and redoubles her efforts.

The exertion leaves her nearly breathless, but luckily the splicer appears to have moved on. Tenenbaum evidently heard (or felt) the gate moving, for shortly after Elizabeth lets go of the wheel, the radio whines into life. “I will lower the gate behind you, to be sure no one gets a look inside.” the doctor's voice says. “Your first stop should be Point Prometheus, und the Genetic Research Department for the Plasmid base.”

Elizabeth has but one very pertinent question: “How do I get there?”

“There is a bathysphere station in Apollo Square not far from here, but the reports I am hearing say that is where the worst of the fighting is. You would do well to look for the Adonis Resort instead.” Tenenbaum replies.

“A resort, huh?” The fatigue Elizabeth has been fighting for as long as she can remember swells within her. “Wouldn't that be nice...” Before Tenenbaum can object again, Elizabeth hastens to say, “I know, doctor, I know. The Little Sisters take priority.”

The doctor's voice softens as Elizabeth attempts to find her bearings. “Do not take my impatience for ingratitude. I am thankful you appeared when you did, und offered to help as well. But now that I am awakened to my sins, I cannot help but wish to be rid of them with all haste.”

“I don't think it works that way.” Elizabeth says wistfully. “You don't get to get rid of the things you've done. You have to learn to live with them. With yourself.”

Tenenbaum says nothing. Elizabeth's words must have deeply affected her. With a sigh, Elizabeth lowers the radio and is about to move on when something hits her hard on the shoulder, knocking her down onto one knee. Shaken and panting from the sudden impact, she looks behind her. The splicer that had survived chasing Tenenbaum leers at her. Already it's brandishing its cudgel for another attack. Elizabeth forces herself to her feet and pulls out her weapon. She points it at the splicer and squeezes the trigger, but the device emits nothing but a somewhat negatory beep. The lights along the side have gone dark. “No!” Elizabeth gasps. She shakes it angrily, and even whacks it with her fist like her father would have. Still nothing happens. The splicer opens its deformed mouth in a grisly caricature of a smile, then leaps toward Elizabeth, its arm held high but falling fast...

Time seems to slow down. Through a strange fog inside her head, Elizabeth can see herself reaching out, but not in a gesture of supplication. Her hand is pointed down towards the floor, and the blast of supercooled air drifts almost casually through the space between before it makes contact with the splicer, which freezes instantly, giving Elizabeth time to run like the wind. She's well out of sight by the time the sound of the shattering ice reaches her ears, but nevertheless she begins to push herself even harder, ducking down a side passage past the Central Square Bistro, ignoring both the sounds of gunshots close by and the Gatherer's Garden that sings out to her with its prerecorded jingle. It's only when her sides begin to hurt from the way the corset squeezes them that she stops to catch her breath. “Just when I'd begun to like this thing too.” Elizabeth wheezes, holding up the strange-looking weapon. “I don't even know what it is.” she complains.

A glimmer of familiar light-that-is-not-light catches her attention, emanating from a nearby El Ammo Bandito machine. Elizabeth looks around warily, still keeping an ear out in case her pursuer hasn't given up, then, satisfied she isn't being watched, makes the old familiar tearing gesture with her hands. The Rapture vending machine is replaced by a plain white container less than an eighth of its size. Upon opening it, Elizabeth finds what appears to be an instruction manual and a stout gray cord beneath it. “The Apollo H4 Laser Pistol Mark 2: How To Get The Most Out Of Your New And Improved Energy Weapon.” She flips past the table of contents to the first page. “Congratulations on being selected to try out the new and improved model of the Apollo H4 Laser Pistol. While reviews of our previous model were nothing short of stellar on the whole, we did pay attention to what few complaints were made, and are pleased to announce...” Elizabeth's eyes glaze over at this point. She only vaguely registers something about 'reduced energy consumption' and something called a 'broad-spectrum energy converter'. _If I'm reading this right,_ she thinks dazedly, _I can use this cord to recharge my laser pistol from a Circus of Values. That's if I can find one._ They would likely be considered too hoi polloi for the Adonis Resort. _I guess I'll have to be careful until I get to Point Prometheus._

Thankfully the street she's on now offers neither challenge nor resistance to overcome. In fact it's strangely deserted. Granted, Elizabeth doesn't know what day or time it is, and there IS a civil war on, but...

The public address system whines to life. The voice that comes out of it is impossible. “Really now Elizabeth.” it says chidingly. “Someone your age ought to know better. These delusions of grandeur won't keep you going.”

“Doctor Pettifog...” she whispers. “No. It-it can't be.” Suddenly she's that scared little girl in Comstock House. Three months in and she's on her hunger strike. Words from that song running circles inside her head, mocking her. _There's a room where the light won't find you. Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down._ But they did come down. She remembers bringing them down, and the man who helped her do it. “He DID come and get me.” she says fiercely, tears pricking at her eyes. “And we showed _all_ of you.” _I killed them. Killed both of them. And I...I'd do it again._

“Really?” Pettifog seems to ask. “This isn't an elaborate fantasy you've cooked up to try and escape from reality? An ocean of lighthouses? A 'Sea of Doors'? Your missing finger letting you control reality? It's a fake power trip, and you're only going to get better once you acknowledge it.”

“No!” she shouts. “This IS real! Realer than you!” She had meant that to tie in with Columbia, the city that never was, but then a thought occurs to her. “You aren't real, are you?” The voice is silent. “Even if you did exist in this world, you were a middle-aged man in 1912. You'd be dead of old age by now. And ADAM...” Her voice trails away. Her thoughts have gotten all muddled. “ADAM...interfering with my 'other sight'...and the ghosts...”

As if to confirm her suspicion, translucent and staticky figures appear all around her. Two of them stand out from the others. “It's overexertion Brenda. Plain and simple.” the man says. “You know what'll make you feel better, is a trip to that resort. We can hit up the spa, the swimming pool. Maybe even try some of that Plasmid therapy.”

The figures fade away, but the voice does not return. Elizabeth slides the cord and the instruction manual into one of her pockets and heads off down the street.


	23. Resorting To Other Means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: The layout of the resort is different from what was shown in BioShock 2. If 2k ever feels like adapting this into its own game, I'd be happy to rework it so that it fits. In addition, I'm using the original introduction, labeled Prelude in the game files. As the new description notes, I've ended up changing a lot more than just what happened in Burial at Sea...

The entrance to the Adonis Luxury Resort is shut up tight. Elizabeth knows that somewhere, in another world, it must be open, but yet again she finds herself hesitating to open the required tear. “There's often another way.” she muses as she examines her surroundings. “Another way that doesn't require ripping a hole in the fabric of reality...” There are three service counters out front; the resort must have been either very popular or else they wanted to appear that they were. Behind one of them there's a stack of paperwork, most of which is scattered across the floor, as if someone had bumped into it while they were in a hurry to leave. Underneath all of the papers, however, there's a small leather book with a four-digit code circled in red on the last page, with nothing else on it. “1-5-4-0.” Elizabeth reads quietly. “That sounds familiar.” She enters the code into the keypad by the gate, and is gratified when the gate begins to open.

A voice rings out from inside. “Free! I'm free!” Elizabeth ducks behind a different counter. _Better safe than sorry,_ she rationalizes. Her fears are justified when the shambling figure emerges. Its features is lumpy and misshapen. Anywhere else it might have been a mild case of elephantitis, but she saw enough of the prisoners in Fontaine's Department Store to know a splicer when she sees one. The splicer lurches past Elizabeth's hiding place and bends over to search a nearby garbage can. She wishes that the mobsters had not seen fit to confiscate her hard-crafted skyhook, or that she'd remembered to retrieve them from their supply closet before she'd had to go running after Comstock. She wonders briefly what he's up to, then shakes herself out of it. _You can check on him later,_ she tells herself. _If you really have to..._

She hops quietly over the counter, taking some amount of solace and pride in her decision to change out of her noisy heels, and lifts up the cash register, which someone else has already looted. She manages to creep up on the splicer undetected with only a couple of close calls and hits it over the head with the empty cash register, laying it out on the ground. She rifles through its pockets, finds nothing of use, and proceeds into the resort.

As her eyes begin to adjust to the dim light, Elizabeth finds her vision is losing color, becoming monochromatic and one-note. She dimly hears a voice, one not addressed to her. “Good evening, Subject Delta. I imagine you're feeling a little disoriented. My name is Sofia Lamb, and I must warn you that you are being watched.” Her vision returns to normal, but she can't help searching the darkness for whatever might have been watching.

She makes her way forward, being careful not to trip over anything that might cause a commotion. The lobby is large and spacious, with a large staircase in the middle leading up and branching out to platforms on either side. A sign on the right past the customer service desk reads 'Demeter's Banquet Hall'. Elizabeth doubts that an entrance to the Rapture Metro would be found in there. “Guess I'd better keep looking.” To the left she sees advertisements for the various facilities, one in particular making her cringe. It describes Plasmid Treatment as 'Invigorating!' and 'Electrifying!' She can agree with the latter one at least, though her own experiences with electro-shock therapy had most certainly **not** been invigorating.

She proceeds past the Plasmid Treatment wing, and suddenly 'hears' the voice from before. Its current sentiment, strangely, is one she herself endorses. “I know that you're unable to remember much, Delta, but perhaps that is a blessing. For some of us, memory is just a ledger of our losses.” Elizabeth tries hard not to recount her losses, but when she's seeking cover in the shadows, heart pounding as she tries to evade one of the scrounging splicers, the list is all that comes to mind. _My mother, my father, my finger, the Luteces, Chen Lin and Mrs Lin (both of them)...and Songbird... From a certain point of view, everyone who died in Columbia died because of me._ Her own blood is on her hands as well, in a sense. The worlds in which that happened, in which much more vital pieces had been left on both sides of the divide, are fragile now, far more susceptible to reality-altering events. Are those her responsibility as well? Elizabeth wishes she could consult the Luteces, but they had made it clear that this would be her venture; at least, they had once. Then they'd appeared to arrange her meeting with them onboard the Titanic. How had another one of her known to do that? Or is _she_ going to do that later, after the fact?

She almost doesn't notice the splicer creeping up on her until it strikes her a glancing blow on the head. When she returns to her senses however, the pain is nearly overwhelming. She's only barely able to open a tear before she collapses. Luckily (if luck can be said to apply to her), the tear yields a Columbia soldier, who proves willing and able to take down the splicer, as well as several others drawn by the sound of gunfire. When the attackers have been dispatched, the woman hurries over to Elizabeth and attempts to pull her to her feet. “I don't know how you got here, but you're coming back with me!” she shouts.

The pitch of her voice makes the throbbing in Elizabeth's head even worse. “I'm not your blasted Lamb!” she shouts back, and just like that the other woman is gone. Back to Columbia, or so Elizabeth hopes. She gropes her way up the wall and staggers away to find a mirror.

Head wounds always look bad, but in the flickering light of the bathroom nearby, she looks like hell warmed over, even to her experienced eye. _Though not by much,_ she thinks as she starts to shiver. Just down the corridor, she spies a Vita-Stat General Purpose First Aid Kit lying on a bench. She's too dizzy to check for danger, but thankfully the Columbian soldier seems to have killed all the splicers nearby. She stitches up the wound as best she can using the damaged mirror for guidance, and washes away the blood before it has a chance to stain her new dress. Casting an critical eye over her reflection, fatigue making her less critical than she might have been otherwise, she looks down at the blood on her fingers. “Nothing new there.” she sighs. “At least the nosebleeds have stopped for now.” As she continues down the corridor, she wonders if one of the new Vita-Chambers would have any information on whether her strange wasting disease has returned. “At the very least I might consider adding myself to the registry, in case something gets the drop on me again.” Then she reconsiders. “No... What use would Ryan Industries make of that kind of information? I know my powers don't come from my genes, but there might be enough to make things a whole lot worse down here.”

At last Elizabeth catches sight of a sign for the Rapture Metro and hastens her stride, her head still full of questions. _What would happen if I...if I died?_ The only answer she can come up with is 'nothing good'. The dock is empty. A quick check of the timetable nearby provides half the solution, a clock at the ticket booth the other. “Five minutes.” she sighs. “Nothing to do but wait, I guess.”

Suddenly the radio whines to life. The voice that comes out is yet another she thought she would never hear again. “Hello?” Comstock asks. “Elizabeth? I-Is that you?”


	24. First Steps and Fondness

She can hardly help from growling his name. “Comstock.” He doesn't reply, as if still trying to come to terms with that revelation. “What do you want?”

“The Luteces gave me your frequency. I suppose I wanted to apologize, though it hardly seems adequate.”

“You got that right.” she scoffs. The silence that follows feels as though it will last forever. “What are you doing?” she asks reluctantly.

“I'm talking to you.” he says, faintly amused.

“No, I meant-” She stops to recover her train of thought. She'd forgotten how infuriating he could be. “What are you doing now?”

“Besides talking to you? I'm trying to find Sally. Not going well; it's a big city after all.”

“Why?”

“To repay a debt.”

Elizabeth's free hand forms into a fist. “You think by bringing her back, I'll forget all the things you and your kind have done? You _tortured_ me for _months_ -”

“No.” he says. It's evident from his tone that he is wincing. “I did not. That was the man _you_ knew.”

She knows he's right, and she hates him all the more for it. “Fine. But- You killed Anna.”

“I know.” he says. “Nothing I do now can undo that. Besides, this debt is one I owe to her.”

“You mean Sally?” Elizabeth hadn't gotten a good look at her from the dock in Fontaine's, but her heart still softens a little at the thought of her. “Tell me about her.”

“Where do I even begin?” He chuckles fondly, then the radio goes quiet for a time. She waits, then lowers it as the bathysphere rises up beyond the gate. The gate swings open, followed shortly by the hatch on the front, and Elizabeth steps inside. She presses the button for Point Prometheus, thankful that it's illuminated, and takes a seat. The hatch closes, and the bathysphere begins to sink.

On the way out of the resort, it passes the wreckage of another of its kind. From the small amounts of plantlife around and inside it, Elizabeth supposes it's been sent there fairly recently. She hears the mysterious Sofia Lamb's voice again. “Good show, Subject Delta; very well done. I'm afraid you deserve...a far better reward than this... You have liberated Eleanor from the hands of a Tyrant. However, I bear responsibility for bonding her with you. And the father imprint is deep indeed. But to create a thing is to know the breaking of it. Your death, I feel...can only be a mercy.

“Goodbye, Subject Delta. I am sorry to end it this way.” Elizabeth hears the explosion, then she finds herself refocusing on the wrecked bathysphere. She presses a hand to the window, wordlessly bidding the fallen Delta farewell.

Then the radio crackles to life once again, and Comstock starts to speak. “The first time I saw her she was so small. She still is, in my memory. She hadn't hit her growth spurt yet. Blonde hair, big blue eyes... She was always enthusiastic about whatever she was doing. She would ask me 'What is that? What is that?' about anything new she could see. It got to the point where I would keep any paperwork I had on the top shelf, just so she wouldn't rummage through it and leave the papers out of order.” He chuckles again, and abruptly sobers. “Those tears of yours...how _did_ you get them?”

Elizabeth takes a breath. “My given name was Anna DeWitt. My father sold me to-to a man like you, and he regretted it. Every day. He tried to take me back, but he...let go or, or Comstock pulled harder...” She takes another breath. It sounds shaky even over the radio. “My physical being was spread across multiple realities, a little finger in one world, the rest of me in another. And... to be honest, I... I don't think I understand the why of it any more than anyone else. I just know it _is_.”

“Huh.” Comstock remarks. “Then I guess what you told me in the department store wasn't a complete lie.”

Elizabeth smiles. “I guess it wasn't.” The realization that there may be limits, even to _her_ omniscience, is strangely freeing in a way she can't quite put a finger on.

Lost in her thoughts and the conversation with Comstock, Elizabeth hardly notices time and the city going past. Not until the bathysphere jerks to a halt and begins to ascend does she realize she's arrived at her destination. “Listen, uh, Comstock.” Her mood sours almost imperceptibly as the name passes her lips. “I'm at Point Prometheus. If I find anything on Sally, I'll let you know. Don't come looking for me.” She doesn't wait to hear his reply before getting out of the bathysphere.

 


	25. To The Point

As Elizabeth gets out of the bathysphere, she hears the sounds of a riot somewhere close by. The ticket booth here is empty as well, so there's no one to observe her as she joins the edges of the crowd. “What's all the commotion?” she asks the person next to her.

“Ryan's thugs have a whole bunch of ADAM stocked up in the labs.” the woman replies. “Guessing he figures he can keep on making Plasmids while his city burns.”

The noise of the crowd is causing Elizabeth's head to throb with pain. She looks at the front of the building, trying to focus on ways past its defenses when a shot rings out. One of the guards goes down and the crowd scatters, screams of panic filling the air. An armed group attempts to storm the building, with cries of 'Long live Atlas!' or 'Down with Ryan!', but they're held off by sustained fire from the upper levels. Elizabeth ducks as a bullet flies past her head, taking cover behind an information kisok. “Now how am I going to get in?” she wonders. “I suppose there might be a side entrance...”

As if to confirm her suspicions, a small group of Ryan's forces appear seemingly from nowhere, though without the telltale signs of either Houdini or the Natural Camouflage Gene Tonic, and opens fire on the rebels. She sets off the way they must have come, taking care to stick to the edges of the room to avoid getting shot.

Sure enough, she finds a side entrance to the building being guarded by two splicers. For a moment she finds it impossible to tell which side of the conflict they're on, but then another detachment of Ryan's goons emerge from the door and are allowed to leave unmolested by the splicers. They head off towards the front of the building. “That's half the problem solved.” Elizabeth muses quietly. “But I don't expect those splicers will let me just walk in there.”

Something moves in the darkness. The splicers turn, fingers twitching at the triggers. A figure in a trenchcoat hobbles toward them, doubled over and clutching at itself. Elizabeth's heart skips a beat. Did Comstock decide to come after all? But the very next second the figure hobbles into a patch of light and her hopes (or fears) are dashed. Its head is swollen, bald, and a hideous shade of pink. “Help me...” it moans. It has crystals growing out of its arms and upper body, causing the trenchcoat to rip apart in some places, including on its right arm.

One of the splicers frowns. “Joe?” he asks. “Joe from Joe & Eric?”

The figure in the trenchcoat doesn't respond. It moans once more and collapses to the floor. When the guards go over to investigate, Elizabeth rushes out of hiding and makes for the side entrance. The splicers whirl around, but the creature on the floor suddenly raises an arm and fries them both with Electro Bolt. Their screams seem to go on without end, at least until two pistol shots from the darkness, no doubt fired by some of the creature's compatriots, put an end to their suffering. Elizabeth's stomach protests at the smell of roasting flesh. Her nerves and breathing are ragged, and as the door closes behind her, she can hear the creature say, “Should've been on your guard...”

While she attempts to compose herself, the creature mutters to itself. “Anything good? Any...any ADAM?” Then there's silence. She imagines the hideous thing picking through the pockets of the still-smoldering corpses and has to fight back another wave of nausea. “Nothing.” the creature on the other side of the door says. “Maybe inside?” Hastily she pushes herself away from the door and sets off to explore the building.

The exterior was designed to resemble a castle from medieval Europe in wrought iron and glass, but the interior is vintage Rapture. Even the nearly empty hallway Elizabeth finds herself in now, after leaving what she presumes to be a breakroom for employees of the facility, is lent a certain appeal by the richly-colored wallpaper. Plain wood doors on either side make her smile even as they bring back painful reminders of her nigh-omnipotence. “I guess the universe has a sense of humor.” she murmurs.

A noise at the far end of the hall draws her attention. She darts inside a vacant room nearby as someone starts to shout. “Let's go eggheads! Atlas and his pals are knockin' at the front door! You don't wanna be in here when they get inside!” Doors up and down the hall are banging open and protesting scientists are forcibly escorted from their laboratories. The man doing most of the yelling sounds familiar, but it's only when Elizabeth catches a glimpse of him passing by that she recognizes him as the man who'd led Ryan's security operation down in the department store, Cyrus Gale. The last two weeks seem to have aged him tremendously: his eyes are sunken, his skin notably sallow. Strangely enough, he has _more_ hair now than he had at the dock. Elizabeth chalks that up to the Fresh Hair Gene Tonic she's been hearing advertisements for over the PA.

One of the scientists is arguing with him. “But my research...! If Atlas' rebels get their hands on it-”

“I'll take care of your research! Just get out of here!” Cyrus shouts. One of his men drags the scientist off, still protesting about something or other. Someone snaps their fingers. The sound of burning, crackling paper soon fills the air. _He sounds stressed,_ Elizabeth thinks. _Might be splicing to take the edge off._ She grimaces as she remembers her stop in front of the Gatherer's Garden. _I came awfully close to doing the same thing._

Cyrus is making one last sweep of the hallway when something causes him to slow in front of her room. He takes a look inside, and his eyes meet hers. Elizabeth's heart leaps into her mouth. The building shakes, rocked by an explosion, but his voice remains firm as he yells, “It's her!” She pulls herself away from his outstretched hands as he lunges across the table. She grabs the cup of coffee from the edge of the table and throws the contents into his face. It's lucky for both of them the coffee was cooling off, or his screams would be even worse. Elizabeth squeezes past him and dashes out the door, right in front of a couple of startled security guards. One of them takes after her, and she can hear Cyrus yelling for the other one to do the same.

She rounds a corner and finds herself looking at a large room full of tables, desks and chairs, partitioned into segments by low walls. With no time to spare, she throws a bolt of Winter Blast onto the floor behind her and hurries into the room. As she had hoped, her pursuer slips on the ice, and the guard behind him hastens to help him up. “What are you two doing?” she hears Cyrus roar as she secrets herself beneath a desk. “Get after her! Find that girl!”

“Yes sir Mr. Gale!” the second guard says. After a moment, presumably taking stock of the room, she asks, “Uh, where should we start-?”

“Who cares? Pick a corner and work from there!”

Elizabeth has no idea where they are. She finds herself feeling nervous; he had thought she was invincible until her run-in with the splicer at the spa. Now... now she's not so sure. She could of course open a tear, but would it be enough? It hadn't helped her back at the Finkton Docks. Her cheek still hurts when she remembers how that soldier hit her.

Cyrus and his guards begin to tear the room apart, though luckily they started at the side furthest from the desk Elizabeth had chosen. The air is still and quiet, so quiet she can hear Cyrus talking to himself. The fighting outside seems to have tapered out. More likely, Elizabeth thinks, the noise simply doesn't reach this far indoors. “Should've pulled the trigger. I should've pulled the trigger. Five men gone. Missing forever.” Cyrus raises his voice. “I know you're in here! When I'm through with you I'll send you out to join 'em!” Then he goes back to muttering.

From the sounds of it, the guards are getting closer. Elizabeth can sense their impatience from the way they scoff and say 'tchah' every so often as they fail to find her. “Mr Gale?” the male security officer says. “Why don't we just shoot up the place?”

Cyrus rounds on him. “That's no good! I need to see the look in her eyes when I drag her out of hiding!”

The guard seems to know better than to voice the possibility that it might be one of them who finds her. He lets out an exasperated but quiet sigh and returns to the search.

“Sir!” A new woman's voice is heard, slightly out-of-breath. “Mr Ryan's on the radio sir. He wants to know how you're getting on.”

“Give that to me!” Cyrus snaps, then a moment later he says, “What is it sir?”

Andrew Ryan's voice is a crisp murmur. “Cyrus. Three of the scientists were kidnapped on their way to a safehouse. A fourth has been shot. It does not appear he will survive the night.”

Cyrus mutters a curse under his breath. “I'm sorry to hear that sir.” he says, not sounding very sorry. “We're still fighting them off at Point Prometheus. It looks like the girl from the department store is here too!”

“Does she seem to be aiding them?”

“I don't know sir, but if you'll give me a couple of minutes I'll flush her out of hiding for you. For us.”

“No. I want you back in Hephaestus. I know there's a war going on, but your recent behavior is grounds for concern.”

“With respect sir, I just need-” Cyrus' next words are bitten off by the grunt of an addict. “I just need a little more time here. I can find her, I know I can, we can get to the bottom of this!”

“That is an order Mr Gale.” Andrew Ryan says. “I'm sure your subordinates will be capable of finding her without your personal interests getting in the way.”

“Yes...sir.” Cyrus fumes for a moment, snorting like a wild bull. Then, if the clatter that follows is any indication, he throws the radio against a wall. “You find her, you bring her to me!” he yells. “Otherwise-” He snaps his fingers and something bursts into flames. He storms away without another word.

The silence that follows is broken by the remaining man attempting to crack wise. “He's gonna set another table on fire?” The women chuckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Point Prometheus was very sparse and, to me at least, feels very cobbled-together. So I'm taking the liberty of expanding it. Additionally, I'm very sorry about the long wait, but things have gotten a bit difficult around here. I'll try to have this finished by the time the two-year anniversary rolls around.


	26. The Hunt Is On

“How do we know she's even in here?” one of the women asks. “I mean, for all we know, she could've taken off through that door over there.” The door she speaks of is at the far end of the room from the desk Elizabeth has taken cover under; she'd seen it on the way in.

“Go on in and take a look.” the other woman says. “It's Plasmid Manufacturing though, so good luck finding anything.”

“Guys in there were on the first trip outta here.” the man adds. “Might be some stuff they left behind. Think Ryan would notice if I, uh, went shoppin'?”

“Don't even think about it.” the second woman says. “Ryan'd have your head on a wall.”

“Hey, easy! I'm just weighing my options!” The man's voice is coming closer. “I'm asking for a friend, you know? Those cameras have some pretty big blind spots...”

“Starting to sound like treason to me.” the first woman says to the other.

“All I needed to hear.” the second woman says. There's the sound of a tommy gun being fired. Elizabeth starts, and chances a glimpse over the top of the desk. The man is collapsing to the floor, the women in blue thankfully too busy watching him breathe his last to notice Elizabeth. “Never liked him, really.” the second woman says, nudging him distastefully with her foot.

“Not what you might call subtle.” the first woman agrees. “Let's get back to work.” Elizabeth ducks back down beneath her desk. “Find that girl, and get the hell out of here.”

“You really think she's worth all of this?”

“Only one way to find out.”

They continue searching in relative silence. Elizabeth can hear them not too far away looking through papers with what seems like more than idle curiosity. _What else are they searching for?_ she asks herself, then shakes her head to clear away the thought. _There are slightly more pressing matters to attend to._ She doesn't know what she should do once they find her. She takes out her laser pistol and eyes the lighting along the side. _Might be good as a diversion if nothing else. That's if it still has any power left. I can't very well test it out to be sure._ Then again, a gun doesn't have to be loaded to be useful...

Her line of thinking is interrupted by a commotion in the hallway. The women stop searching. “Cover me.” one says to the other. Footsteps recede into the distance, but Elizabeth can still hear the other woman breathing. She wonders if her own breathing is just as audible, and covers her mouth with her hands to muffle whatever sound she might be making. The seconds pass in agonizing slowness. The first woman takes her time in returning. “Splicers. Three of 'em. Atlas's men.” she says. “No cover in here that'd withstand more 'n' a couple bullets. Gonna need to draw 'em someplace else if we wanna take 'em down.”

“What about the girl?”

“Who cares about the girl? The splicers are the problem.”

“Cyrus said-”

“Cyrus isn't coming back. I've heard the boss talk like that before. If they're not reassigned, they get disappeared to some weird science lab.”

“This whole city is a weird science lab now.” the other woman says. She's not exactly wrong. “What's the plan?”

But the first woman shushes her. There are new voices approaching. Elizabeth recognizes one as the splicer from outside. “Tell you later. Come on.” The two of them move off. Elizabeth pokes her head up again to make sure that they're gone, catching a flash of blue receding round a corner, then she crawls out from under the desk. Her legs buckle beneath her when she tries to stand and she winces.

“Now how am I supposed to get out of here?” Elizabeth asks herself. The splicers are almost here. She has to think fast.

Joe is the first to round the corner. He slows to a stop when he sees her sitting calmly in a chair, as if she was waiting for them. “I saw you outside.” he says. Then he turns to his companions. “Are you guys seeing her too?” When they nod, he looks a trifle relieved and steps forward, only for Elizabeth to level her laser pistol at him.

“I don't want to use this if I don't have to.” she says. “It's a prototype from Ryan's labs; I figure I'll get more money for it if it's fully charged.”

The splicer does not seem to be impressed. “Even if you kill me, there's still two of us left.”

“So I overcharge it.” She makes a show of tinkering with the settings. “Bigger blast radius, should be enough to take all three of you out.”

“I thought you said you wanted more money for it.” one of the men says.

“I'd prefer to stay alive.” Suddenly she realizes that it's true, but there isn't any time to analyze why.

“I'll give you forty ADAM for that thing.” another one says. Joe looks at him like he's lost his mind. “Good investment.” he says defensively.

She scoffs. “I thought Ryan's guys were supposed to be the skinflints. They'd give me double that.”

“Fifty then.”

Elizabeth shakes her head. “I have better things to do with my time than haggle with the like of you.” She gets to her feet, thankful she'd been able to get even a little rest in.

“You think you can just walk away from me and my boys?” Joe shouts. “We'll show you!” He lets loose with his Plasmid, but Elizabeth is already off and running. Dodging bullets that make her ears ring and lightning that makes her hair stand on end ( _not exactly the belle of the Rapture ball now are you?_ a mean little voice whispers in her head), she makes her way through the tangle of desks, tables and chairs and out into a different hallway. The women from Ryan Security she'd hoped to distract the splicers with are nowhere in sight. They must be setting up the ambush somewhere else. So much for that plan.

She turns another corner and catches a glimpse of two figures in blue trenchcoats a moment before they open fire and a streak of pain burns along her side. As the two women rush toward her, Elizabeth dimly realizes that she's been shot.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I'd be able to have this finished by now. Evidently not...


	27. The Old College Try

Elizabeth had learned many things about her father when the Siphon came down. Indeed, she was still learning things about her father even now, one of which was that his capacity for understatement was greater than she had known.

Being shot **hurt**. And the bullet had only grazed her. Booker had taken much worse during his trip through Columbia, and he had rarely, if ever, complained. She supposed he viewed it as some sort of penance, and wondered what her other father had felt, if his expressions of grief and anguish during her torture had been genuine, or, if like so many other things about him, they had been like a mask, like the masks that the splicers had taken to wearing.

All of these things tumble through her head in the moments between when she falls to the ground and when Ryan's women reach her. “Get me a medkit!” one of the women orders the other. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

“It's just a scratch!”

“And she's just a kid!”

 _She's right,_ Elizabeth thinks. _I am just a kid. I'm only nineteen years old... or am I twenty, or twenty-one? Does time have any meaning for me anymore?_

“She's in shock.” the second woman says. Elizabeth wonders if she's been talking out loud. “I'll go see if I can find a medkit.” She stands up and Elizabeth loses track of her. _There was something... something I had to do..._

Voices from afar. Different voices, but vaguely familiar nevertheless. “There she is!”

“Get her!”

Someone fires a gun. Elizabeth winces. “This facility belongs to Ryan Industries!” one of the women says.

“We're not here for the facility! We just want the ADAM! And the girl!” one of the men responds.

“Girl's with us! As for the ADAM...” The woman laughs shortly. “Good luck finding any. Ryan knows all about how hard up you addicts are! He had the plasmids shipped out ages ago.” _Plasmids... I wanted a Plasmid. But which one...?_

“Hand her over and your trespasses against the people of Rapture will be forgiven!” _Bring us the girl, and... no, no that's over. Over and done with._

“Well, there ain't no talking with you.” the woman says, and fires her revolver. As the splicers return fire, Elizabeth comes to the conclusion that she really ought to move. But moving proves difficult when a jolt of pain rips through her as she tries to stand up. She grits her teeth and stands up anyway, putting her hand upon the wall for support. No one seems to notice. She staggers away slowly, having to fight the urge to put her free hand across the wound. She doesn't remember where it's been; the last thing she needs is for it to get infected.

Not that she knows if it _can_ , of course, she thinks as she staggers on down the hall. But there are many things she's not eager to find out about her current state of being. In one room she finds the other woman lying on the floor. She's too tired to look for a cause of death, but she searches the room as thoroughly as she can, not wishing to fall victim of whatever killed her. On a desk a few feet away she finds the first aid kit the woman must have been looking for. Elizabeth looks back down at her. “I never knew your name,” she begins quietly. “But you tried to help me. Never mind why. I'll try not to let your death be in vain.” She opens the first aid kit and applies some antiseptic solution, biting back a cry when it feels like it's burning, and proceeds to cover the wound with some bandages. Then she kneels down stiffly and is about to try and roll the woman onto her back when she feels her move of her own accord. “Y-you're alive?” she asks dumbly.

The woman groans. “Way I feel I wish I wasn't.”

“I'll see if I can find another one.” Elizabeth says. She helps the woman to sit up. “Can you tell me where it hurts?”

The woman grimaces. “Arm. Feels like it's broken. Up and down my side too.”

Elizabeth looks at the way the woman is holding her arm. A quick test proves her hypothesis. “That's broken all right. I can whip up a sling if we find some material.”

“Don't bother. I can handle myself, long as I make it back to my partner. Besides,” the woman adds. “Wouldn't have any ADAM to repay you. I know how it is.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure. Remember, there was a struggle and you got away again. Understand?”

“Yes ma'am. And...thank you.” Elizabeth doesn't relish the idea of another round of hide-and-go-seek with them.

The woman nods. “One more thing? Keep your eyes out for a splicer. Looks like he's a TK addict. Threw a whole desk at me, only just managed to dodge.” With that she is gone.

For a moment Elizabeth doesn't know what to do next, then the radio whines and a voice comes out of it. “Hello? Fraulein, can you hear me?”

Elizabeth reaches for the radio, though the action makes her wince as it pulls at her wounded side. “I can hear you. It's nice to hear from you again Doctor Tenenbaum.”

“Yes, I...I have been quiet for some time. Und it only now occurs to me that I never once asked for your name.”

“Elizabeth. My father called me Anna but...never mind. Just call me Elizabeth.”

“As you wish. I managed to procure some of the ingredients on the list. All that I require now is the base of the plasmid.”

Just like that Elizabeth remembers. “R-right, the plasmid. Uh, refresh my memory, where would I find that again?”

“The Genetic Research Department at Point Prometheus.” Is it Elizabeth's imagination or is there a note of frustration in Tenenbaum's voice now? “They were most likely moved elsewhere because of the attack, but you might still be able to find one that will fit our needs.”

“I was hoping you wouldn't say that.” Elizabeth sighs. “A couple of Atlas's splicers just chased me out of there.”

“There may not be a better chance to look inside.” Tenenbaum says. “If many more of those splicers get there...”

“You're probably right.” Elizabeth says. “I'll pop it in the pneumo when I'm done. Over and out.”

She puts the radio away and feels a surge of anger bubble up inside of her. “Why do things always have to be complicated?” she mutters to herself as she exits the room. The splicer the woman had warned her about isn't far away, loitering by the entrance (or exit, it's a matter of perspective) as if he's waiting for his comrades. Elizabeth gestures at him. A tear opens up behind him, and before he can bring the cloud of debris around him to bear, the tip of a Japanese Tachi emerges from his stomach. The splicer lets out a cry which turns to a gurgle when the wielder of the sword jerks it up and through his ribs to slice his heart in two. As the splicer dies, the samurai responsible for his demise nods respectfully at Elizabeth, who manages to muster up the grace to return it before the tear closes and the samurai disappears. “It seems as though I have some history there.” she muses. “Or rather _will_ have.”

Elizabeth now finds herself looking down the same hallway she had been looking UP not ten minutes before. It had seemed a lot longer then; now it just feels abandoned. A cloud of smoke billows out from one of the rooms along the side. One of the fires Cyrus had started seems to have found a good source of fuel. She hurries past it as quickly as she can, the heat of the flames readily apparent even from the corridor. She wonders if Atlas's goons are still fighting Ryan's. She can't hear the sounds of gunfire any more. She hopes that the women made it out alive.

When she reaches the room full of desks, she sees the door that leads to the plasmid laboratories has been blasted off its hinges. Evidently the splicer that she had first seen outside, the one that went by Joe, had survived, and had not been in a mood to deal with the security measures the door would likely have had. The door is still sparking too; he must have come through here fairly recently.

Poking her head carefully through the doorway, Elizabeth finds herself looking up at a huge expanse of machinery, one which wouldn't have looked too out-of-place in Finkton. What WOULD have been out of place is the stillness and quiet. Conveyor belts frozen in place, mechanical arms ready to whisk away cratefuls of plasmids which will never be filled. To her right she sees a Circus of Values. She hurries toward it, already reaching into her pockets for the laser pistol and the cord with which to attach it to the vending machine. Now that she's done that however, she realizes she has no idea when it will be done charging. She eyes the lights along the side uncomprehendingly, wishing she still had the instruction manual. An unidentifiable sound, dissonant and harsh against the beginning strains of August Wilhelmj's _Air on the G String_ , makes her turn, the sudden motion pulling at her injured side again. When she looks back at the Circus of Values, she is confused to see that it appears to have transformed into a baker's stand, with her Apollo H4 Laser Pistol just one of the many loaves of bread on display.

Elizabeth blinks.

And everything starts to shimmer.

“Not again...” she manages to say before the change occurs.

* * *

The next thing she knows, she's standing in what seems to be Paris, of all places. It looks oversaturated somehow, like someone had gone in and applied three extra layers of paint to everything in sight. The smell of fresh pastries wafting out from the bakery makes her stomach ache, like it hasn't ached in a long time. She backs away from the inviting building and almost trips over a small boy offering her a part of his baguette. “N-no, no thank you...” she says. The boy shrugs and saunters away, holding the bread above his head as he maneuvers through the crowded street.

Elizabeth looks around. She knows this isn't real, or at least thinks she knows that, but she still finds herself a trifle excited by the sights and sounds of the City of Light. To her delight, she hears an accordion begin to play somewhere nearby and eagerly starts looking for the source of the music.

It leads her on through streets filled with flowers and beautiful people, always promising to be just around the next corner. Finally she finds it. By an old run-down church with a statue of an angel on top, she sees a table. Next to it is a record player, from which the dulcet tones of Leo Ferre crooning _Le Pont Mirabeau_ drift lazily through the air toward her. And at the table itself sits...

“You!” Elizabeth spits. The sky darkens as suddenly as her mood.

“Elizabeth. There you are.” Zachary Comstock beams at her. “Right on time, just as you said you would be.”

“What are you talking about?” she demands.

“Just at the end of the second verse. 'Let night come on, bells end the day. The days go by me, still I stay.'” the hateful old man says, and he _is_ old, not the worn-down half-Booker half-Comstock she had come to know in Rapture, but with the beard and full set of wrinkles to match. “Not an exact translation, but-”

“What are you doing here? I thought we- I thought _I_ killed you!”

“You did indeed. But dead is dead, as doubtless you've heard.” He stands up and pulls out the chair across from him. “Come now, sit down. You've gone through quite enough for one lifetime, even one as strange as yours.”

Despite herself, she finds herself sitting down in the chair he offers to her. “What...what is this place?”

“It's whatever you want it to be.” Comstock gestures, and suddenly they're sitting in Rapture's Tea Garden. The record player smoothly transitions to a Django Reinhardt melody, as a bolt of fire whips past Elizabeth's head and hits someone fleeing in terror. The person crumples wordlessly to the ground, already engulfed in flames. There's a strange sound behind her, and a few moments later, a figure wearing a bark mask seems to materialize by the dead body, looking up (or through) the two figures at the table before bending down and rifling through the corpse's pockets.

Comstock gestures again, and again the scene changes. New York is burning beneath them. “No!” Elizabeth shouts. “This wasn't supposed to happen! I- We- I stopped this from happening!”

“So you did. Do you want to go down and thank yourself for a job well done?” Comstock indicates a lone figure standing at the edge of a platform on the zeppelin they are now riding. Elizabeth knows her, though her back is turned and her frame cast into shadow. The record player is playing something she doesn't know for a change. _In violent times, you shouldn't have to sell your soul... In black and white, they really really ought to know..._

“Stop it!” she yells. A tear slips unbidden down her cheek. “Make it stop!”

Comstock is unmoved by the display. “Make it stop? My dear child, I'm not doing anything. The power is yours; it always has been.”

Elizabeth gestures at the horrible tableau before her. In her panic and fright, nothing happens at first, but as soon as she resorts to the motion for a tear, the scene rips itself in two and they are back in Paris.

“As I said,” Comstock says. “This is whatever, or wherever, you want it to be.” She can't look at him, though the next words he says almost forces her attention. “You came here because you still have questions.”

“I do?” she asks. Suddenly it's very hard to think, like a fog is coming over her thoughts as it's coming over the city now.

“Was it worth it?” She looks up. It's not Comstock talking now; it's her. One chair has become two, an old man has become two young girls. Both of them are her. One wears the lovely white dress she favored in her earliest real memories (not the ones she's seen through other people's eyes, of her in a small and lonely room only furnished with a crib), the other in the outfit she'd worn to try and blend in to Rapture that now fills her with revulsion when she recalls her behavior and her intentions. 

“You chose the cage, so you would remember where you've been.” the younger version of herself says, holding out the two empty boxes that the chokers had once resided in. “But you can hardly stand some of those memories. Would ignorance have been better?”

Before Elizabeth can answer, the other her, the third her, poses a question of her own. “And what about Comstock? Was letting him live the wisest thing you could have done? You don't know how well he treated Sally.”

“I don't...” Everything seems to be pressing in on her, the air, the music, even the words themselves as they hang between the three of them. “I don't want any part of a world in which letting someone _live_ is considered to be a bad thing.”

“Then why did you even come to Rapture in the first place?” the third her says, almost in disgust. She sits back in her chair and fades out of view. Everything else seems to follow suite until Elizabeth is left on her own on the ground in front of the Circus of Values.

“That was...” For once she's left without words, and scrambles to stand up. Pain shoots along her side again, and she doubles over. “At least I wasn't hallucinating long. It sounds like that song is just coming to an end.” As she looks up, the lights along the side of her laser pistol go out. The vending machine still seems to be working, so she checks to make sure the cord is still attached at both ends. “Huh.” she says upon discovering that it is. “I guess that means it's done charging.” She carefully unplugs it from the machine first before removing the cord and putting it back in her pocket. The machine laughs loudly as she retrieves her pistol. “And the same to you.” she tells it with a frown.

* * *

Next, Elizabeth turns her attention to the massive contraption that takes up almost the entire room. “There are ladders connecting most of the levels of machinery to one another.” she says softly to herself. “With the power off I should be able to look through the crates at my leisure until I find what Dr Tenenbaum is after.”

She's not the only one to come up with this idea, however. When she comes a little closer she can see shapes moving around the structure, and can hear voices occasionally raised in anger. “Some of Atlas's 'bandits' no doubt.” she murmurs. “I'll have to be careful if I don't want them to notice me.” For a moment she wonders if that would really be all that terrible, but the gunshot wound to her side and the lump on her head serve as sharp reminders.

Setting her sights on the nearest of the ladders, she pulls herself up the first rung and gasps in pain. The climbing required makes her side hurt to the point where she is forced to stop every couple rungs and catch her breath, to say nothing of letting the pain subside. “I didn't think this all the way through.” she says, her voice already ragged. “How did it come to this?” she wonders at last, clenching her left hand around the pole of the ladder and bringing her right hand in front of her face, the better to stare at the thimble that adorns it. “It was that...whatever it was, that _disease_...” The memory of how it made her feel, so bitter and cold, so distant and fragile (or had that just been _her_?) and so very very tired comes back to her in a rush, and just like that Elizabeth reaches for the tears and lets loose.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gadfangled thing just will not end!


	28. Let It All Out

Anna DeWitt would not have been powerless against the five splicers that roam around the mass of machinery, but it would not have been a fair fight. Elizabeth however is and is not Anna DeWitt, and the difference between them is what gives her the power to rebalance the scale.

Reality rips open around each of the splicers. Their fates are unique, but Elizabeth is too busy to notice them at the time. Keeping six universes aligned just long enough to deal with each of her current enemies demands all of her attention. She doesn't notice the blood that has begun to drip from her nose once again. Right now all that she is is a conduit, but the moment does not last long. Just like that her powers stop, as if on some level she's aware that the job is done. When conscious thought returns, it does so with a jolt of pain so severe that she crumples to the ground, letting out a cry that would have drawn attention had anyone been present to notice it.

As she lies kneeling on the floor, acutely aware of the trickle of blood from her nose, she hears herself talking again. “Was it worth it?” the other her asks coldly. “You're tearing yourself apart for a girl you've never even met. You're tearing whole _universes_ apart!”

“That-” She gasps for breath. “That's not true. I, I made sure I did it right this time-”

“You know you can never be certain. Not the way you are now. The human mind is not prepared for the shape that reality is, and you're still very human.”

“Could a human do THIS?” she snaps. A Columbian medical kit appears beside her. Elizabeth reaches for it, only for it to shimmer and be replaced with one of Vitastat's General Purpose First Aid Kits. She balls her hands into fists, then forces herself to relax. The _plip_ of the droplets of blood that land on the floor with the others is the only sound in the room, apart from her rhythmic breathing. Suddenly she can't go on, and she breaks down and cries.

At first she's taken aback, wondering why tears are streaming down her face even while they continue to do so. After trying and failing to come up with a reason, she gives up and just lets herself cry. Her tears mingle with her blood on the floor in an ugly-looking puddle, but she doesn't care.

Time continues to pass. Across the city, battles are waged. Men and women die. Andrew Ryan watches Cyrus Gale being dragged away to the Protector Labs, and just for a moment he wonders where he went wrong. He doesn't specify, even to himself, who he is referring to. Soon the onslaught of work makes him forget such foolishness. The man who is and is not Booker DeWitt has worked his way back to Market Street, hoping for a rest, but he stops in front of the Little Wonders Educational Facility once again. And he wonders...

Back in Point Prometheus, Elizabeth sniffs. She wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands and attempts to stand on legs that once again shake, threatening to give way. She grimaces, tries not to curse and takes hold of the ladder. “A little moral encouragement wouldn't go amiss right about now.” she mutters wistfully. She looks from side to side expectantly, though she knows how foolish her hopes are. Not even Robert puts much stock in such things, and her visions or whatever they were have deserted her. She sighs deeply and begins to climb, pushing herself past the uncomfortable pulling sensation in her wounded side.

On the first level she finds the first of the splicers. Judging by the rigidity of his limbs, the occasional full-body spasm and the quick shallow breaths he's taking, she judges him to have been hit by a sizable electric discharge from one of her Tears. A tableau of the splicer's future flickers in front of Elizabeth's eyes. If she interprets it right, he will develop an addiction to the sensation and invest heavily in the Electric Flesh series. She might feel sorry for him if she didn't also know the things he would do to fuel his addiction.

The crates on the conveyor belt are just above eye level, so she has to clamber onto the stilled conveyor belt and stand on tiptoes to get a look inside. She does this with every one on her current level. All of them are empty.

Thankfully there are no more ladders to climb. Only two short flights of steps separate each level. Even still Elizabeth finds herself almost wishing one of the splicers would wake up to alleviate the monotony as she starts up the stairs to the next level. The splicer on this level is slumped unconscious over one of the crates. In his hand he's holding a Plasmid bottle filled with a familiar-looking dark blue liquid. Elizabeth eagerly picks it up and pulls out her radio. “Doctor Tenenbaum!” she says. “I think I found it!”

The doctor responds within moments. “Describe the bottle to me.” she instructs Elizabeth.

“It's silver.” Elizabeth says. “Four transparent sections along the side. The liquid inside is blue, dark blue, and the stopper has a faintly human face upon it.”

“What color are the eyes?” Tenenbaum asks.

“Silver.” Elizabeth replies. “Same color as the bottle.”

Tenenbaum breathes a sigh of relief. “ _Sehr gut_.” she says. “Once the liquid inside has been treated with whatever formula is desired the eyes will turn red. The liquid itself becomes either red, green, blue or yellow, depending on the contents.” Elizabeth can almost hear the doctor smile wryly. “But I am sure you do not wish for a lecture on the finer points of Plasmid or Gene Tonic manufacturing.”

“Perhaps another time.” Elizabeth says with a smile of her own. “Right now I'm going to see if I can find a Pneumo Tube to drop this in.”

“No.” Tenenbaum says abruptly. “The Pneumo system is...unreliable now. Mr Ryan has his men searching every package und parcel. I would not put the hope and safety of the little ones on them; it is more than likely the majority of them are already addicts.”

“You don't have to tell me twice.” Elizabeth remembers her erstwhile pursuer Mr Gale. None of her memories of him are in any way fond ones. “So, what should I do?”

“The journey back to the place we met would be long and dangerous. The skirmishes in Apollo Square have spread.” Tenenbaum hesitates. “Whatever power that you used to summon up the dress, would you be able to transfer yourself the same way?”

Elizabeth frowns. “I might...” she says. It's her turn to hesitate now. “But, I- I just used it, and- There have been _side effects_ recently...” She shakes her head, and makes up her mind. “Never mind. I'll be there in a moment Dr Tenenbaum.”

She puts the radio away and tremblingly reaches out a hand. Opening a Tear to the same universe as the one she was in wasn't something she had had cause to practice. She didn't even know if it was theoretically possible. Still, she doesn't have much choice. It takes more effort than she thought; she's out of breath again when she arrives in Dr Tenenbaum's office.

Dr Tenenbaum nearly jumps out of her skin, but she manages to maintain enough presence of mind to take the bottle from Elizabeth's hand before Elizabeth collapses. She sets it down on the table, well out of harm's way, then awkwardly offers Elizabeth her own hand. Elizabeth borrows the older woman's strength to get back on her feet and almost collapses against her once she's regained her footing. She mumbles an apology as her vision swims. “Here.” the doctor says, guiding her over to the table. “Sit down here.” Elizabeth does so. She'd prefer a bed and about a year's worth of sleep but, ironically, she just doesn't have the time. “You say these side effects started recently, yes?” Tenenbaum is checking Elizabeth's vitals for wont of something better to do. Her fingers are lightly touching Elizabeth's wrist, her skin dry yet comforting. “I do not know what it is that you do, but it would seem it is taking its toll. It is much like a Plasmid in that fashion.”

Elizabeth wants to respond but her mind will not seem to let her form words or even thoughts. Her head hangs loosely on her neck. It's all she can do to sit there and hope that it passes soon.

The radio whines. Elizabeth looks at it but can't bring herself to take it out of her pocket. “Elizabeth.” Comstock's voice says. “I'm at the Little Wonders 'Educational Facility' on Market Street. Trying to find out where Sally is.” Someone says something unintelligible in the background. Comstock's reply is equally unintelligible. Then he returns to the radio. “Find me when you can. I can't make heads nor tails out of this.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Barely squeezed this chapter in at the end of the month. Hopefully the story itself will feel like ending soon.


	29. Taking Care of It

He's drunk again, whoever he is. That's part of the reason. He drinks to forget. There's nothing new in that. It's what he did before Sally came along. Then he knew he had to shape up. _And look where that got me_ , he thinks bitterly.

He's searching through room after room of cutesy cartoon scenery, the better to disguise what really goes on. Indoctrination, brainwashing, call it what you will, it makes him sick, even moreso because he sees faint reminders of Founder propaganda nearly everywhere he looks. And anything that might be helpful is in some damn code he can't read. The only scientist-type he could find is scared stiff by the blood all over him, and it takes everything he has left (which isn't much) not to put a bullet in him. So he calls her. What else can he do?

He's not surprised when she doesn't answer. He just throws the radio against the wall and continues on his way.

* * *

Elizabeth had only seen the outside of the building the last time she'd been here. She warps past it this time. She doesn't feel like walking.

The lobby is almost demolished. Comstocks and DeWitts, both were good at destroying things. The Luteces' words about being part of a whole come to mind, but Elizabeth is too tired to try and adjust her thinking. She heads into the facility, following the sound of gunfire.

When she finds him, Comstock is in a back room that looks much like any other office in Rapture. The turret in the corner isn't quite the norm yet however. Comstock is pinned down by the turret and a security guard, the latter only distinguishable from the Splicers they'd fought in the department store by his armor. The turret swivels to face her, but strangely it doesn't open fire. It just sits there, twitching, like it's suffering from some sort of feedback loop. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Elizabeth mumbles and shoots it with her laser. It explodes in one hit, sending the guard scrambling. _Huh,_ she thinks. _I guess he must have hit a couple times before..._

"Elizabeth!" Comstock shouts as she crumples to the floor. He runs over to her, keeping his eyes fixed on the desk the guard has hidden behind. "Did they get you?" he asks her.

"I'm fine." she answers irritably. "This is at least a couple hours old." He looks puzzled, and only then does he notice the bandage around her side. He doesn't comment on her nose bleeding again.

A door across the room opens, and more guards come hurrying out. "Heads up." she grunts, pointing with her free hand.

"I see 'em." He heads to cover.

Elizabeth is happy to leave the fighting to him. If she closes her eyes, it's almost like old times again. She hasn't even had to throw him anything yet; somewhere along the way he managed to acquire a couple Vitastat First Aid Kits, which he burns through with somewhat alarming speed. It's only then that Elizabeth realizes what she'd smelled on his breath. "Are you _drunk_?!" she yells.

"No!" he yells back. Then, when his next blast of buckshot misses its target, he amends his statement. "Maybe! A little?"

"You're hopeless!" she growls. She throws him a machine gun one of the guards had dropped before she arrived and sets a few of the desks on fire with her laser so the others have fewer places to hide.

With her help, Comstock manages to make quick work of the remaining guards. Feeling slightly better now, Elizabeth takes a deep breath and, trying not to think about how this might reflect on her previously declared pacifism, asks, "Have you found anything?"

Comstock shrugs. "Just this." He passes her a piece of paper he'd found on one of the desks. The font is slightly bigger than it had been on other papers, so he'd assumed it to be important in some way.

She looks at it. "Looks to be some sort of cipher. A substitution code."

"Can you de-cipher it?" he asks.

"I'd need the keyword to have something to go off of. Wait a minute, this letterhead says it's from the desk of Dr Suchong."

"So?"

"So, I wonder..." And she's right. "'To all Little Wonders personnel: Subject #77, formerly known as Sally, is showing signs of reduction in ADAM generation. As such, she is to be decommissioned upon returning to any active facility. Her...remains are to be retained for examination by Dr Suchong.' They're going to _kill_ her!"

"Not on my watch." Comstock tightens his grip on his shotgun. "Does it say where she is now?"

"Not on here. We should look around for any schedules they might have kept." Elizabeth is on edge as they begin their search. She knows that there's no reason for her to be; even if the worst does happen, she can in some way rectify it. But she'll always know that it happened...

They find what they're looking for in a room overlooking a large block of cells below. "More cages." she mutters while Comstock takes a look at the schedule. "Childhood is just another resource for them to exploit down here. Just like it was up above."

"There." Comstock says, ignoring her. "Mermaid's Landing Aquarium. I wonder why they'd have sent her there."

"It might have been hard-hit during the riots. More bodies for them to 'test' her on. If you're ready I can take us there now."

"With those Tears of yours? All right." Comstock says. "It should be smooth sailing. A couple splicers here or there. What could go wrong?"

As she whisks them away to the aquarium in the blink of an eye, Elizabeth remembers something else the letter had said. She even recites it out loud. "'Be cautious around the Protector unit. The bonding process has not been fully implemented as of yet, but there have been unconfirmed reports of aggressive behavior.'"

* * *

Just as Elizabeth had thought, the Mermaid's Landing Aquarium had been the target of some of Atlas's forces. Many of the exhibits have been destroyed, leaving brightly colored flora and an abundance of water and corpses strewn across the floor. Some are of the animals featured in the exhibits, but most are human. "Must've been peak viewing hours when these bastards hit." Comstock remarks, stepping over a dead woman, his eyes fixed on the shadows in the next room.

Elizabeth finds herself drawn to the exhibit on sea slugs. She wants to know more about these strange little creatures that inadvertently caused all this. The display is still functional and she presses the button for narration. "I near lost both my hands in the last war. Shrapnel from a bomb cut right through. Never found out whose bomb it was. But that's another story. A couple months ago, I was unloadin' one of the barges. Mighty big flounder in that one, record breaker for sure. I was cleanin' her off when I noticed an ugly little thing clingin' to my hand. As I said, it were an ugly thing, but I never did see its like before. Stuck it in a jar back at home, figured I'd sell it t' one of the museums an' get me name on it. Turns out, fate had somethin' different planned." Through the grime already encrusting the display stand, she can barely make out the name Zigo d'Acosta.

The tape winds to a halt, and in the hush that follows they both become aware of heavy metal footsteps in the distance. Comstock hisses her name and reluctantly she comes to his side. They follow the sound until they arrive in the aquarium's gift shop. The lights are barely functional, but even when they're off, the hulking shape behind the counter seems to be darker still. As they watch, it shifts in place and lets out a bone-rattling low groan. "Almost done Mister B." a hauntingly familiar voice says.

Comstock's heart nearly stops. "S-Sally?" The massive thing seems to stiffen. It slowly turns its massive head towards the door, revealing a number of glowing yellow portholes like an old-fashioned diving helmet. In fact the whole thing is like a diving suit, only even bulkier, and with a large drill on its right hand.

"I guess that's the Protector." Elizabeth whispers.

"Protector hell, that thing looks like a tank." The thing is still watching them, though occasionally glancing at something or someone to its left behind the counter that they can't see. "That was definitely Sally I just heard. It looks as though we'll have to get through this thing if we want to rescue her." Comstock says. He tries to make out any sort of weak points the thing might have through the gloom. He sees what might be an oxygen tank on its back, which is as good a spot as any. If he aims to the right a bit, he should get a good shot in.

"No sense in putting it off any longer." Comstock says. He raises the shotgun to his shoulder and fires.

The buckshot bounces off the monster's armor, although a couple fragments manage to penetrate the oxygen tank, setting off a cloud of gas that billows forth from its shattered remains. It lets out a deafening roar and tears through the counter with its drill. It rushes forward out of the cloud, grabbing Comstock by his shirt and throwing him through the door they had come in from. "Booke- Zachary!" Elizabeth runs after him. Even after his attempt at bonding over the radio, she refuses to call this man Booker. The brute seems to ignore her, but she knows that if she helps Comstock too directly, that's very likely to change. Suddenly she sees a Tear shimmering in a far corner of the room. "Here goes nothing." she says with a shake of her head, and she pulls it open.

A spectral figure in tattered clothing emerges. Unseen eyes focus on the monster and it lets out a piercing and very familiar scream, sending strange tendrils of energy into the corpses nearby, which rise from the ground and charge the monster en masse. "No..." Elizabeth whispers. "It can't be her. Not _here_."

But it's not the same Siren she faced in Columbia, a tortured memory of her mother. Its clothes are different, as is its face, from what little she can make out. It's a different woman, whose wrongs are much more recent, scarcely more than a few days old in fact. Elizabeth recognizes her from a newspaper header she saw in Mercury Suites: It's Anna Culpepper. "Couldn't face the music!" the Siren howls. The monster in the diving suit howls back wordlessly as it swings its massive armored fist in an arc, swatting back the reanimated bodies before they could pose a threat.

The brief respite enables Comstock to get back to his feet. He's still a little shaky, and his first few shots with the machine gun miss their mark entirely. Next he tries Incinerate. Though his first blast also misses, his second flies into the oxygen cloud still spurting from the ruined tank on its back. There's a sizable explosion and the creature catches fire. Its screech is a higher pitch like nails on a chalkboard tapering off into another roar. To Elizabeth, it feels like the whole building is shaking. The flaming hulk flails around wildly for a couple of moments before it regains its composure and rushes Comstock again.

But the Siren of Anna Culpepper dives in between them and lets out a screech of its own that knocks both parties back. The corpses rise up again and throw themselves on top of the monster now, trying to smother ( _smother_ ) it under their combined weight, to no avail as they catch fire and whatever life is still in them burns away with what is left of their flesh. The monster pushes itself to its feet and turns to look for Comstock. Elizabeth does too, having lost track of him in the melee. She sees the staircase on her right a fraction of a second before a burst of machine gun fire draws their attention to the second level, where Comstock is unloading on the monster with his tommy gun.

It tries to swat the bullets away then runs with surprising speed towards and up the staircase that Comstock had taken. The Siren is quick to join it, but the monster shoves it aside, where it whirls angrily in the air, howling all the while. It swings its drill at Comstock. Somehow he dodges, and the drill gets stuck in the wall. The monster tries pulling and spinning it free alternately, which Comstock takes as an opportunity to mount the beast's back to get a better shot at its head. It roars in frustration and tries to knock him off, but he grabs hold of the framework before he can be sent flying and struggles back into place. Just as the wall gives way and lets the drill loose, he manages to jam the shotgun into one of the portholes and opens fire. Its whole body rocks with the impact, and he fires, again and again and again and again, ignoring the creature's howls of pain. With each blast it slumps a little lower until it collapses to the floor with a piteous moan, and dies.

Silence. Even the Siren is silent. Comstock, breathing heavily, lets himself fall back limply onto the ground. Elizabeth climbs up the stairs and approaches it hesitantly, ashamed of the confusion and anguish it must be feeling. "Anna?" The figure looks at her. "Anna, you're dead. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I brought you back, and I'm sorry Ryan had Sullivan kill you. But there was just enough of _something_ left, call it a soul or whatever you want, there was just enough to let me bring you back."

"How did- Who are you?" the Siren whispers.

"We don't have time for that. I'm sorry about that too. Just... wherever you end up, I hope you know that you helped more people than you could ever have hoped for." Elizabeth reaches out a hand. The Siren reaches out as well, and at her touch, it dissolves into wisps of smoke. Elizabeth is left alone with Comstock and the fallen hulk of the Protector.

Not quite alone as it happens. "Mister B?" a little voice sniffs. Sally's come out of hiding (Elizabeth supposes she's been behind the counter this entire time), and now stands at the door to the giftshop, looking distraught. "What'd you do to Mister B?" she asks plaintively.

"Sally." Comstock weakly says her name, and stands up, shaking all over. "Everything's going to be okay." Comstock tells her as he makes his way over to her. She does not seem to believe him, shying away from his touch and looking again at the corpse of 'Mister B'.

Elizabeth follows Comstock to where Sally is waiting. "It's all right Sally." she says softly. "He's gone on to a better place, somewhere where he won't be in so much pain."

"They- They said the ADAM was going to make him feel better." Sally says. "I never saw them give him any though."

Neither of them seem to know what to say to that, so they just crouch silently beside her. A red Tear appears in the shop behind them, and strangely, despite Elizabeth not willing it to, it opens. Her own voice comes out of it, to everyone's surprise. _"I'll be so alone without you. Maybe you'll be lonesome too, and blue..."_

Then it closes.

Elizabeth and Sally and Comstock all look at each other. "Was that you?" Sally asks.

Elizabeth frowns a little. "I guess it was." she says at last.

Comstock attempts to smile. "Her name's Elizabeth." he says. "She's going to take you to someone who's going to make you feel better."

Elizabeth takes a deep breath and smiles as well. "That's right." she says."It may take some time, but you'll soon have that nasty creature out of your stomach." She glances at Comstock. "Are you sure _you_ don't want to take her?"

Comstock shakes his head. "You can do it quicker. Besides, Tenenbaum doesn't know me."

Elizabeth nods. "I'll come back for you." she says. She holds out her hand to Sally.

Sally looks over at Comstock. "Mr Booker always says never run off with strangers."

Comstock fights back a laugh. "Yes, yes I do. But Miss Elizabeth is... She knows me very well, and I trust her to take good care of you." he says.

Sally seems reassured by this, and at last takes Elizabeth's hand. They disappear in a flash, leaving Comstock with only his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm back. Weekly updates until it's finished!


	30. After You've Gone

Comstock doesn't know what happened. One minute he was looking down at the broken, blasted and burnt body of the nameless Protector, and the next minute he's out on the open ocean in a tiny little boat. Elizabeth is there, looking slightly less remote than she had in a while, and there are two other people with them, one rowing, but both with red hair. Red hair...

"I know you." he says. The woman turns. "Don't I?"

"You did once." she says curtly. "Or at least one very like us."

"We're all very much the same now, thanks to you." the man says. "Or at least one very like you."

"Well they're no help." Comstock thinks to himself. He turns his focus back to Elizabeth. "Is she safe?"

Elizabeth nods. "As safe as a child can be in Rapture. It'll take some time before the cure is ready, and even then she still has her...uh, training to unlearn, which is another job on its own. But she'll make it out of there, one way or another. And most importantly, she won't be alone."

"How?" Comstock can't help but ask.

"There's a man who will help. I don't think you'd know him. He doesn't know himself right now." She smiles a little at that, like she's appreciating a joke she just told that went over his head.

"Okay..." He wonders if the redheads are rubbing off on her. Then he wonders which of them came first. "So what now?"

"We're going to New York." the man says. "And what you do there, on your own head be it."

Comstock feels sick. The last time he saw New York...no, no that doesn't bear thinking about. "No, not New York." he says. Elizabeth looks at him, one eyebrow curving slightly upward. "Take... Take me to Paris. I've always wanted to go." He says the last part somewhat sheepishly.

Elizabeth sighs and looks away. "I should've guessed he'd want to go to Paris." she mutters darkly.

"That's one more for me." the woman says. In a sudden flash of lightning that almost blinds Comstock, he thinks he can see the man purse his lips.

"I don't understand." Comstock says. "You came to Rapture to kill me. Right? So what changed your mind?"

Elizabeth doesn't look at him when she responds. "I'm a pacifist." she says. "Killing's not in my nature."

"Huh." Comstock considers this. "That mean you didn't kill that Splicer in the department store?"

"Yes." Elizabeth says. "And before you ask, I did start that rumor about Andrew Ryan. It seemed the easiest way to get you into Cohen's club."

"You been leading me along this whole time, and you expect me to believe you're just done with me like that?"

Now she does look at him, glaring daggers as she does. "I don't want to spend any more time with you than I have to. I may have trusted you with Sally, but men named Comstock and I do not get along very well."

"All right." Comstock knows he shouldn't ask why. "One last thing." Her gaze does not seem to soften. "Will I ever get to see Sally again?"

Now it does. "That's for her to decide." Elizabeth says.

* * *

She leaves him in Paris in 1958. Whether an accident or not, the Luteces end up depositing him in the river for a local policeman to extract. Elizabeth doesn't know what he will make of his life, a fact that makes her rather happy. "I suppose I may have washed my hands of this business once and for all." she muses as she walks along the Sea of Doors, the lighthouses rising out of the waves all around her. She can see others of herself as well, as far as the eye can see. "It just keeps going." she whispers. And it does. It goes on and on and on until it's all that she can see. It's all that she is. She is everything. She is infinity.

She knows all of the answers to all of the questions she's ever asked. _Because it does. Because it has. Because it will._ The Luteces had not brought her to the Titanic. She had. Everything had. Infinity had. And with that knowledge comes loss. "The human mind is not prepared for the shape that reality is," she once told herself. So she's not exactly human any more. She had thought she was, which is why her body had begun to fail before and during her arrival to Rapture. She had thought the ADAM from Winter Blast would help, so it did for a time. The paradox between human and not was what her mind had struggled to accept. But if the universe can accept her, she could too.

When Elizabeth returns to her self, she feels calm in a way she hadn't felt since the Siphon came down. The knowledge and the currents of time all around her tell her what she has to do next.

She steps off the pier...


	31. Intervening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
> 
> It helps to understand this in order to proceed. Because of the nature of multiverse theory, things happen and do not happen at the same time. There are universes in which Elizabeth lives. There are universes in which Elizabeth dies. And there are those I have not spoken of. It's an old superstition that talking about something gives it power, whether in name or in deed. But just because something is old doesn't make it valuable. Likewise, just because something is old doesn't make it worth less. "The test of a first-rate intelligence..."
> 
> Let's talk Burial at Sea.
> 
> For a couple moments after I finished it I sort of liked it. For a long time after that however I hated it, more than I can remember ever hating anything before. I still hate it now, but in that faint intangible way that all my emotions devolve into after long enough. A friend of mine replays it from time to time to regain inspiration. I don't think I have that luxury. That one scene has legitimately given me nightmares, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
> 
> I wanted to make In Absentia a stand-alone remake, not mentioning or drawing attention to Burial at Sea for fear of validating it in some way, shape, or form. But as the story grew longer I found it harder to continue without doing that in some way.
> 
> You can take this section as canon to In Absentia if you want to, much the way Levine, hack that he has turned out to be, has said you can take Burial at Sea to be canon if you want to. Well I don't Mr Levine; frankly it stinks worse than the Proving Grounds. So consider this me saving Elizabeth from her creators, because goodness knows 2K doesn't seem to know how to.
> 
> The quote I used near the end is from Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Fantastic play. I recommend the 2003 version with Paul Newman as the Stage Manager.

She couldn't see. Why couldn't she see? She'd stepped off the pier and into what she knew very well wasn't really water, but which certainly seemed like it to all of her normal senses. Now she was suspended in empty space. Less than empty; at least empty space had something in it. Even if it wasn't air, it was minute particles of matter or invisible waves of energy.

Then she realized that she didn't have anything to feel _with_. She was just something in the middle of nothing, unable to move or cry out or do anything but think.

"You're not supposed to be here." one of the Luteces says. (Without ears, how can she hear them?) "It's not your narrative."

"She knew or at least suspected the risks when she came in." another Lutece says. (In? In would imply there was something instead of nothing. She could feel herself starting to panic. _But I don't have anything to feel_ with _!_ ) "Much like the one she came to rescue."

"Do you understand?" the first Lutece says.

She does. She also knows that she doesn't care. _Rules are meant to be broken,_ she thinks defiantly at them. (How can she think when there isn't a brain to think with?)

"There are exceptions to every rule. The loss of her powers harmed more than just herself."

"If there's an exception to a rule, then it isn't a rule."

"And the two sets are related..."

"So in laymen's terms it's all right."

"Not _all right_."

"A colloquialism. I meant mostly right."

"There we are."

And there _she_ is, gasping in relief, breathing in the nothing, and very very confused. "What is this? What- What's going on?" Elizabeth asks.

"You're...in between." one of the Luteces says, and despite having her body back, Elizabeth still can't quite make out which one it is.

"You know the shape of reality, but unreality is different."

"Unreality?" She huffs. "Why can't you two ever make sense?"

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And speaking of which..." Elizabeth still can't quite see anything, but she has a vague sensation of being shown something, something familiar. "Are you ready?"

"Ready for what?" She has another vague sensation, this time of knowing something, but not being able to put her finger on it.

"Are...you ready?"

She finds herself agreeing and at the same time wanting to know what she's agreeing to. "Yes. I-I'm ready."

Things begin to take shape around her. Elizabeth struggles to see...

* * *

"Take hold of her lads."

As the man moves in and hands tighten on her shoulders, everything seems to stop. The man freezes in mid-step. Elizabeth's breathing does not slow down. Nor do her nerves, despite how well she thinks she's kept them concealed. "Hello?" she asks. She still can't move her head.

The answer comes back to her, incredibly, in her own voice. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"No..." Elizabeth says. "You can't- you can't be-"

"You didn't really think you were _alone_ did you?" the other Elizabeth asks, stepping into view, albeit only out of the corner of the first Elizabeth's eye.

"I don't- I don't-" Elizabeth continues to stammer as her counterpart approaches the chair.

"Come on." the other one says softly. "Let's get you out of here."

As the second Elizabeth begins to work on the ropes, the first Elizabeth cries out, "Wait! What about them?" She tries to motion to the people all around her, Atlas in particular.

"They won't remember. At least not for long."

"What do you mean?"

"We're going to make it so you never had to be here." With that her bonds are removed and the other Elizabeth takes her hand while the world fades to white.

When her sight returns Elizabeth breaks into a sweat. "No, no! We- We have to go back!" The other her leads her on, the way she herself had with Booker what feels like a lifetime ago. She's wearing a grey variation of Lady Comstock's dress. Elizabeth wonders in the back of her mind where she'd gotten it. "Sally, she, she's why I went back...!"

"She'll be alright." the other her says. "We're going back in time."

"But you can't. That's not how it works." Elizabeth feels somewhat foolish, trying to explain how her powers worked to someone who by all accounts seems to still have them. "It's still _happening_ , right now!"

"I know." her counterpart responds. "And it will keep on happening, right until it doesn't."

They make their way towards the last of the lighthouses, Elizabeth's gait unsteady due to her two weeks of unconsciousness and the drugs still present in her system. "How did you get here?" she manages to ask. "Are you even real?"

"I'm as real as you are." the other her says. "As to the matter of 'how'... are you sure you're up for this?"

"Yes!" Elizabeth says stubbornly. "I'm fine!" She yanks her trembling hand away and crosses her arms, making it plain that she won't move an inch.

The second Elizabeth sighs. "I would have done the same thing if I were in your shoes. Speaking of which..." She casts a dubious glance at Elizabeth's high heels. "You really didn't think about taking those off?" Elizabeth just glares at her. "All right. To answer your question, I come from another set of universes, another multiverse. Think of it as...when constants are variables. The constants do not _define_ each set, but the analogy still holds."

The frown on Elizabeth's face begins to soften. "I used to know this, didn't I?" The other Elizabeth nods. "How did you get _here_?" she asks again.

"With all respect this isn't really the best time for that. Not that time really matters here, but... You know what I mean."

Elizabeth can't think of anything to say to that. "So, where are we going? Or, or when...?"

"September 10th 1958." the other her says.

"That's a couple days before the shootout in Neptune's Bounty."

The other her nods. "You weren't there yet, I assume."

"It wasn't me. But yes." Elizabeth says. Her counterpart looks confused. "I don't think I'm really Elizabeth. She...she died in the Toy department. I'm just a copy. A pale imitation." She looks at her hand. Very pale.

To Elizabeth's satisfaction, this causes the other her to start a little in surprise. "You DIED?"

" _She_ did." Elizabeth says. "I came close a couple of times-"

"And you don't think you're you." the other her says thoughtfully. "Do you feel like you?"

"What sort of question is that?" Elizabeth demands.

The other Elizabeth struggles to rephrase the question. "Do you have all of her memories? Her...normal...memories?"

Elizabeth ponders this. "Sometimes I think that I do, but... I have trouble accessing some of them."

"Small wonder. You came back from death." the other her says.

"That wasn't me!"

"Then who was it?"

The question hangs between them for what feels like an age before Elizabeth wobbles unsteadily. "I need to sit down. Lay. Lay down. I need to _lay_ down."

The other Elizabeth offers her hand. "We'll find a place for you to rest when we get there."

"Where is 'there'?"

"Dr Suchong's clinic." There's something in the other Elizabeth's voice that makes Elizabeth herself suspicious. "That's where one of the reasons you ended up in that room is."

Elizabeth limps along after her counterpart. Her brief display of resistance has exhausted her. The lighthouse seems so very far away, yet strangely they reach it in only a few steps. Elizabeth wonders if the other her made the journey shorter for her. She wonders if that's even possible. "Then again," she muses to herself. "What does possible even mean for her?"

* * *

As they make their way through the back of Suchong's clinic, the other Elizabeth says, "You were going to come here, after..."

"After what?" Elizabeth asks.

"Never mind."

"After Atlas was through with me?" Elizabeth laughs shakily. "I'm not naïve. I had a feeling that's what he had in mind."

"And you wanted to go _back_?"

Elizabeth says nothing.

The other her ventures a question. "You didn't have any specific ideas about what he was-" Then she cuts herself short.

"What?" The other her shakes her head. "What does it matter?"

"It matters because that's what I saw. Not in full. Just...enough." The other her sounds very much like herself in that moment. "And if you don't know, it's best that it remain that way."

"I'm not some child you have to protect, you know. I- I've done some terrible things." Elizabeth says. She hates the way she sounds like she's bragging.

"I know you have. That doesn't mean you want to hear it."

"So now you're saying you know better than me?" Elizabeth snaps. She's so tired and angry and angry and tired she can't even tell which is more powerful right now. "Is that why you came? To lord over us mere mortals how much better it is to be omniscient and omnipotent?"

The other Elizabeth is infuriatingly quiet. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Then how _did_ you mean it?" Elizabeth demands of her counterpart. Now it's her turn to say nothing.

They walk along narrow corridow after narrow corridor until they reach a plain unmarked door, passing a room ominously labeled 'Cognitive Conversion'. Elizabeth is about to reach for the handle of the unmarked door, but what she knows of Suchong makes her stop. "Even by Rapture's standards, Suchong is unreasonably paranoid. I don't think he'd leave his office defenseless..."

"We bypassed a number of them when we came in through the Tear." the other her says. "But I agree." She opens another Tear in the floor, as casually as she might throw open a plain glass window. Through it, Elizabeth could see into the room beyond, albeit at an unusual angle: She wasn't used to looking down through a ceiling. There had been times in Columbia... but no, those memories aren't hers. "We should be good to drop on in. Do you want to pick the safe or shall I?"

"Can't let you go having all the fun." Elizabeth reaches into her pocket and rests her hand on her lockpicking kit, only taking it out once she's hopped into the Tear and landed in front of Suchong's safe. When her companion joins her after flicking on the light switch, she gripes quietly, "It's no good. It's a combination dial, no lockpick is going to be able to open it." She thinks for a moment. "He uses his birthday in the Housewares department. I doubt he'd ever reuse a code if he could help it." She stands up and rifles through a stack of papers on Suchong's desk nearby. Finding nothing, she huffs in frustration. "What are we looking for in here anyway?" Elizabeth asks.

"I don't really know." the other Elizabeth admits. "All I know is that we'll know it when we see it."

"How?" Elizabeth asks sceptically, despite herself.

The other her replies with a shrug.

"Huh. Are you sure you're really omniscient?" Elizabeth is only half paying attention, her focus being primarily on a book that seems oddly conspicuous. As she flips through B.F. Skinner's Behavior of Organisms, she doesn't find anything that would work as a code. _I should be glad that my jailors at Comstock House never got their hands on a copy of this._ Her grip tightens around the book as she recalls Powell's voxophone. Then, like a bolt from the blue, one more idea strikes her. She flips to the inside of the front cover. "Try 1-9-3-8. It's the date this book was published. I have a vague recollection that Suchong was an admirer of Skinner's work."

Her counterpart rotates the dial to each of the numbers Elizabeth suggested. The safe clicks, no alarms go off, and they both smile. The safe opens. Inside it is a mess of papers. The ones on top appear to be receipts, but as she makes her way through them, Elizabeth finds them starting to become less detailed: simply naming a sum and the parties involved (usually either Ryan or Fontaine, but more frequently Fontaine), until right in the middle she finds a plain white sheet of paper, folded twice. Carefully, so as not to disturb the pile, she slides it out and unfolds it. " Ar Mg Sc Al B Na Sc Ar Mn B."

" _A Vigenère cipher. If, if we assume hydrogen is A, and iron, the 26th element, is Z..."_

The other Elizabeth is looking at her. She only has to utter four short words before the other her is hurrying to her side. "Vigenère. Key word Suchong." Years of code-breaking in their towers flash into and out of their heads, and they come to the same conclusion at the exact same time. "Would You Kindly."

Elizabeth flinches. She sees Atlas in a darkened room raising a wrench above his head. Somehow she knows it's meant for her. She sees another man holding the same wrench and advancing on a Little Sister, and then...

Then the vision ends, and she's left breathing hard, heart racing, next to her counterpart in the dim light of Suchong's office. "This is it." she says. "This is what he was after. _Will_ be after."

"Are you all right?" her counterpart asks.

"I- I think so." Elizabeth replies. "But how are we going to get this to Atlas? No..." She abruptly remembers the secret room in the Manta Ray Lounge. "To Fontaine?" Even in Suchong's private office, alone with someone who could almost be her twin (and more, she thinks, recalling the Luteces' deception in Columbia), she only barely whispers Atlas's true identity.

"We'll send you back to just before you lift the building, but you have to bar the door this time to prevent his thugs from getting in. From there, you'll negotiate for Sally's freedom before giving Atlas this 'Ace in the Hole'."

"You really think I can do that?"

"Of course I do." The other Elizabeth smiles at her. "I think **I** could. But you should probably rest up a bit before we go."

"How am I supposed to rest, knowing that he's out there doing god-knows-what to Sally?"

The other her's smile turns into a frown. "You're not going to be able to help her if you insist on punishing yourself."

"Don't give me that." Elizabeth snaps. "Doesn't it bother you? I mean, you _know_ what he's doing. If anything you should be the one insisting on my going!"

"You didn't have a chance to find out before, but Little Sisters are essentially immune to damage. Their bodies are _full_ of ADAM, and the slugs inside them regenerate any injury they take before they can even feel it."

All at once Elizabeth feels a weight lifted from her shoulders. "So if anything he's doing more harm to himself with how angry he's getting." Then she remembers what she did to Sally in the Toy department. "But when I was...when I was with Comstock, I had him turn up the heat to force Sally out of the air vents. And she kept screaming..."

The other her looks somewhat taken aback by the revelation of Elizabeth's past misdeeds. Perhaps she had just tried to look past them. "If- If I had to guess I'd say the sea slug got overwhelmed. It couldn't heal her fast enough."

Elizabeth feels the weight threatening to settle back down on top of her. _Smother._ "Do you think he's found out?"

"I don't think we should give him any more time to try." the other her says. "Are you ready to go back? Remember, you have to bar the door before you put the particle on the ceiling."

"And then aggressively negotiate for Sally's freedom before giving Atlas the Ace." Elizabeth smiles grimly. "It'll be nice to be on an even playing field again."

The other Elizabeth puts a reassuring hand on Elizabeth's shoulder. "You're going to be fine." she says. She doesn't seem to notice that she's using her right hand, but Elizabeth does. "After three, all right? One, two, three..."


	32. Retrace

Just like that she's back in Fontaine's office in front of the model of the department store, holding her crossbow in one hand and the container with the Lutece particle in the other. For a moment she starts to panic, but then upon finding the Ace tucked into the hem of her skirt, she allows herself to relax. It's virtually empty, though to her left is a table laden with posters of 'Atlas', which she quickly determines to be the best method of barring the door.

As she gets ready to push it into place, the radio seems to whine into life. “You trust her?” Booker seems to ask. She knows it's not really him, but somehow it still helps to pretend.

“If I can't trust myself who can I trust? I mean it's worked out so far, right? For the most part?”

“That's...one way of putting it.”

“I knew what she was talking about, didn't I? The 'interrogation'.”

“More 'n likely.”

Elizabeth grunts as she struggles to move the table. “And I just let myself walk into it?”

“Endin' up as martyrs does seem to run in the family. Among other things.”

“Yeah...” She stands the table on its end and uses it to bar the door shut. “Here we go again.” she says with a sigh. She mounts the display in the center of the room like she had before (and yet hadn't all at once) and activates the container. It flies out of her hands and lands with a thud at the apex of the building where the load-bearing columns intersect. This time instead of watching the building rise up, Elizabeth scrambles down off of the model as fast as she can. The table is wobbling. Elizabeth has to rush over to the door in order to hold it up. Soon enough she feels someone trying to open the door from the other side. The handle rattles. Someone thumps on the door, then presumably the same person says something unintelligible to his compatriots. The thumping and banging increase, as Elizabeth's heartrate does in return.

Finally the radio buzzes to life. “You bar the door or somethin'? The boys just wanted t' t'ank you f'r a job well done.” Atlas says.

Elizabeth tries not to gulp before she responds. “My parents taught me better than to put my faith in strange men.”

“Quite the comedian.” Atlas says. “But I don't s'pose you've put the same amount o' thought into how you'll be gettin' outta there? Or how we're meant to deliver the girl to ya?”

“As I said, I don't trust you. My cheek still hurts from that punch you had your man give me. So how about a new arrangement? I'll be the first to leave, then you and whatever army you have left are free to follow on. Once we get to the city, you give me the girl and I'll let you in on this paper I stole from Suchong's office before I left. It's in some form of code; maybe you can find someone who knows what it means.”

“And why would I do that when I hear tell some little rat's been scurryin' around readin' the coded messages the good men 'n' women of Rapture have been sendin'?”

Elizabeth puts the radio aside angrily. Her curiosity had once again gotten the better of her. “It was simple Morse Code. Anyone could have read it.”

He tries sounding casual. “What makes you think I'd be interested in the slant's double-dealin's?”

“That's not going to work.” she informs him. “You as good as told me you wanted to know what was on it.”

There's a moment of terrible silence while Atlas thinks. “All right, y've got yerself a deal. I'll let my boys know to let off those double doors.” She can even hear him giving the order over the radios his men must be carrying. As three sets of footsteps recede into the distance and the elevator doors close, Atlas adds, “Just don't go alterin' it any further. I'm in a hell of a temper now.”

The radio goes quiet. Elizabeth looks at it, then puts it back. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?” she asks herself quietly.

There's little time for introspection though, and Elizabeth hurries to pull the table away from the door. “Atlas probably has his men by the elevator in the lounge. No doubt waiting to grab you soon as you come down.” 'Booker' warns her.

“Probably does.” Elizabeth says. “Any ideas on how I should deal with 'em?”

“Same way you've dealt with everyone else down here. Why fix what ain't broke.”

“I don't know how many people he'll have waiting for me. I'll have to do it fast; I don't think I want them grabbing hold of me.” As she opens the doors and steps back out, she feels something snap against her ankles and jumps back, hurriedly scanning the hallway for whatever trap she stepped into. Her eyes soon light on a crossbow with a gas bolt loaded into it shoddily connected to the trip-wire at ankle height. “That could have been trouble.” she breathes. The trap might even have worked if the cord connecting the trap and the crossbow hadn't come untied. “I wonder. Was this just bad luck, or the work of a guardian angel?” she muses as she takes the gas bolt for herself.

She sends the elevator down empty several times, to lull any thugs or Splicers into a false sense of security. To her relief none of them attempt to come up to see what was going on, so she feels safe to take the elevator this time, cloaking with Peeping Tom partway down and making sure the gas bolt was primed. Atlas's thugs barely even look as the elevator doors open. Elizabeth takes a deep breath to steady her nerves and avoid breathing in any of the fumes, and fires the gas bolt, hastily banging the button with her fist to close the door at the same time.

* * *

Lawrence E. Davis, known as Lonnie to some, had made himself known to his fellow inmates in the department store as something of a sadist. He didn't think of himself as one; he just went along with his impulses, which tended to be towards hurting things. And right now, as he stumbles coughing and cursing out of the cloud of gas Elizabeth has unleashed, he very much wants to hurt something. All around him, men are crumpling to the floor. Atlas hadn't wanted to take any more chances with this little stranger, and Lonnie can't say he blames him. He blames her all right though, swaying a little on his feet and feeling sleepier than he'd like given how close they are to Rapture. “I'm...going to hurt her.” he mumbles. “I'm going to hurt her, and then I'll hand her over to Atlas. He didn't say he wanted her unharmed, just alive. And there's lots of different levels of 'alive'.”

Elizabeth doesn't hear this, being in the safety of the elevator and halfway to the executive suite at the top of the building. “I'll be very glad if I never have to see this place again.” she grumbles, more to settle her nerves than anything. She fishes a tranquilizer bolt out of her ammo pouch and arms her crossbow with it, just to be on the safe side. “All right. The gas should've dissipated by now.” She pushes the button and forces herself to breathe on the descent. “It would be a waste of all our efforts if I got careless now.” she murmurs.

The door opens and a shot rings out. A bullet buries itself in the wall a short distance away from her. “It wasn't empty!” Lonnie shouts. “And I missed!” Elizabeth doesn't know that she has been spared the sight of him handing a wrench with which to kill her to Atlas, but she still remembers the enjoyment in his voice when he had the revolver pointed at her. That same enjoyment threatens to resurface in his voice again now and she freezes him solid with Old Man Winter before he gets a chance to reload. Then she takes off running.

The Lounge is littered with both the living and the dead, all spread out upon the floor. If she remembers her literature, sodium thiopental knocks people out for anywhere between five to fifteen minutes. And given the reduced effectiveness Possession seems to have on Splicers, she doubts she'll even have that long before some of her victims begin to wake up. “I hope I have enough money for a Circus of Values.” she thinks aloud, running her fingers through her pouch. Only two left, counting the one she has in her crossbow. She hears Lonnie shouting something repulsive in the distance and her heart nearly skips a beat. The Luteces, in their irritatingly understated way, would no doubt refer to him as simply unpleasant.

She's out of the Manta Ray Lounge now and back in the showroom of Bathyspheres DeLuxe. It's almost deserted now, with only a stray Houdini Splicer to keep watch for any further resistance. And, of course, the Big Daddy, still lumbering brokenly around in a circle. “I don't have enough tranquilizer bolts to take out that Houdini.” Elizabeth says quietly in between gasps for breath. “I just have to hope I can sneak past him.”

Elizabeth is halfway to the entrance of the showroom (or the exit) when the front doors of the Lounge bang open. Lonnie scours the darkness and fires a shot at the only moving thing he sees. The Houdini vanishes with a loud crack. Elizabeth ducks under cover, ready to turn invisible at a moments' notice.

The Houdini reappears a few feet away from Lonnie and they exchange shots. Even in his semi-drugged state Lonnie manages to dodge most of the fireballs, though one skims his side and he shouts in anger, letting off a volley from his revolver. All but one of the bullets miss. The last one passes through the Splicer's leg and hits the Big Daddy square in the shoulder as it's coming up the staircase opposite Elizabeth.

Elizabeth had never thought she'd be glad to hear one of those things howl, but she is now.

The Big Daddy storms up the steps to the Houdini, who's raising his hands and screaming something about how it's not his fault. The Big Daddy doesn't care, lets out another roar, and promptly impales him on its drill. Then it picks up the body and throws it with all of its considerable might at Lonnie, who is quite sensibly fleeing in terror. The impact slams Lonnie into the floor, knocking the wind from his sails if the grunt he lets out is anything to go by. He only gets enough air back to let out an undignified yell before the Big Daddy brings its foot down hard and crushes his head. It stomps again for good measure, and doesn't even bother wiping its boot off before returning to its lonely trudging.

“Couldn't have happened to a nicer person.” Elizabeth says, breathing a sigh of relief. “Well, maybe just one.” With that, she leaves Bathyspheres DeLuxe and makes her way to the elevator.

* * *

The man on the guitar has disappeared, no doubt to report to Atlas, so Elizabeth is alone both as she waits for the elevator and when she's inside it. “Do you think... Do you think I'll be able to see her again?” she asks.

“The other you?” 'Booker' replies. “Wouldn't surprise me. We never could leave well enough alone.”

“Using my own words against me, huh? Has it really come to that?” Elizabeth permits herself a smile. “When all this is done, if- If I have a choice, where do you think I should go?”

“I'm not here, remember?” 'Booker' says. “Whatever I have to say is something you already know.”

“Well that's helpful.” Elizabeth complains.

“Look, it's up to you. It always has been. What do you want?”

Elizabeth doesn't know. So she says nothing.

The doors open. Elizabeth steps out into the gloomy plaza. “I wish there was a faster way than to go through the Academy.” she whispers. “Those teaching methods give me the shivers.” But with no better option she heads back in through the front entrance.

The Preparatory Academy is even more deserted than when she had been through some time before. Either the Splicers had recovered and wandered off, or they were waiting in ambush. Elizabeth keeps her guard up. When she enters the cafeteria however, she hears something break in the vents and a torrent of water comes pouring out. “That's not good!” she cries. “This whole place is going to be flooded soon!” She hurries through the rest of the Academy, the threat of the ocean seemingly one step behind her the entire time. As she leaps into the vents in the back, her vision flashes monochrome images of someone else making their way through waist-high water, and a voice unlike any she can remember hearing saying, “Subject Delta, I want you to commit this moment to memory for me – this… howling, brutish slog through the dark. **This is who we are.** ” Elizabeth wipes away a trickle of blood from her nose and continues her scramble through the vents, only stopping to rest once she arrives at the service elevator and pulls at the lever. “What was that?” she gasps. “Another memory?”

“This one was different.” 'Booker' tells her. “I don't think that happens to the other guy.”

“Other guy? What- Who are you talking about?” But the voice in her head doesn't answer.

She arrives in the ruined background of the Toys department. It doesn't take her long to figure out that something's missing. “Where's the body? My body, it- it was right here, impaled on some rubble!” As if on cue she feels an enormous stabbing pain where she remembers the exit wound had been. “Did Ryan have his men take it? Or Atlas, what if he's been here already and-”

“Slow down, Elizabeth. Breathe.” 'Booker' says soothingly. “You'll find out what happened. Don't bear worryin' about 'til then.”

“How do you know that?” she cries out. “How do _I_ know that?”

“You don't. But you did. You just have to trust yourself, trust your judgment.”

Elizabeth's breathing subsides to a more normal rate. She reaches out and gently touches a jagged spike of rebar. “There's dried blood here. So it was here, it just isn't any more. Like you said, I'll find out what happened. I owe her that much.”

The Toys department is just as much of a mess as it had been. Comstock's body is still there, and Elizabeth pauses next to it. She crouches down for a reason she can't explain and closes his eyes as she had with her own. “Why did you do that?” 'Booker' asks.

“If you have to ask, it means that I don't know, doesn't it?” She straightens up and heads for the way she and Comstock had come in more than a lifetime ago. The doorway has partially collapsed and there's a fair amount of rubble in the way. It takes some doing, but she manages to get through before it gives way completely.

The trek through the Appliances section is lonely and grim. Elizabeth has to struggle to stay alert; every nerve and muscle is crying for a rest. Thankfully nothing happens, though the occasional corpse makes her feel somewhat strange and distant. It feels like a lifetime ago. And in some ways it was. On and on and on she moves through the rest of Housewares until she's back in front of the tram, trying hard not to look at the vent in the wall behind her. She pulls the lever and the tram departs.

The long long silence is broken by the radio relaying a voice that still sends chills down Elizabeth's spine. “So you're off to the main building then? Me an' my crew'll head down after, if your worship will allow.”

“If you must.” Elizabeth replies. “I just hope I won't have to deal with any of them while I make my way back down to the Station.”

“Y' mean like you dealt with Lonnie and the rest of the welcomin' committee?” Atlas says. “If y' ask me it takes an awful cold-blooded sort t' do that to a man. Makes me wonder why y' didn't do the same t' anyone else.”

“What happened to Lonnie was his own fault. As for the rest of them, they're alive aren't they?”

“Aye. Still groggy o' course, but that's what sodium thiopental will do. I should know, had some planned f'r you. Y' best hope I don't get a chance t' use it.” The line goes dead.

“What a creep.” Elizabeth shivers as the tram docks at the Pavilion. “What does this Ace in the Hole do anyway? What does he want it for?” Even when the interior proves to be as deserted as it appears, Elizabeth still keeps her voice low.

'Booker' doesn't have to. After all, he isn't really there. “How's that song go again? The one by Mrs Fitzgerald?”

Elizabeth hums a few bars. “'Sad times may follow your tracks. Bad times may bar you from Sak's. At times, when Satan in slacks-'” Her voice catches a little. “'-breaks down your self control.'” When she reaches the elevator she adds in the rest. “'Maybe, as often it goes, your Abe-y may tire of his rose. So baby, this rule I propose: Always have an ace in the hole!'”

When she finishes the song she gets a flash of a hand-written note. All she has time to read is “To Jack with love, from Mom & Dad. Would you kindly not open until-” and then her vision returns and her nose begins to bleed. Shaken, she makes her way through the now-open gate and back to Fontaine's Station. The bathysphere she and Comstock had arrived in is gone, replaced by one that seems to have been custom-built for Ryan Security. Elizabeth pulls the lever and it begins the return to Rapture.

She raises the radio to her lips. Her message is terse and to-the-point. “If you want what's on the paper, come to the Hotel Monseñor, seventh floor. I won't tell you to come alone, because odds are you won't. I _will_ say that this message is best heard by you and you alone. Suchong called it an Ace in the Hole.”

 


	33. Hand It Over

When Elizabeth arrives, Rapture is in chaos. Something has happened at the Kashmir Restaurant, and everyone seems to be blaming Atlas. “He was probably on the radio with his followers in the city when he wasn't talking to me.” Elizabeth mutters, well out of earshot of one of the many uniformed constables standing on street corners or escorting people home. She isn't sure how many of Ryan Security's members have been informed about her, but so far none of them have seemed to recognize her.

She stops to rest on a nearby bench, hardly surprised that no one stops to ask if she needs a hand. “'You're right Jim! We'll keep what's ours, they'll keep their dignity.'” She mimics one of the propaganda playlets under her breath. “At least in Columbia people still acted like human beings. Not always in the best of ways, of course.”

Little by little the crowds in the street begin to dissipate. She notices, however, that one or two of the ones who remain are acting very suspiciously. “I don't like judging people by their appearance, but these men are not making it easy for me...”

She decides to leave before one of them starts causing trouble, but just as she gets up to leave, one of the men pulls out a tommy gun and very deliberately shoots out as many of the lights as he can. “Down with Ryan! Atlas forever!” he shouts. The members of Ryan Security who are present attempt to gun him down but are taken by surprise when not only the other suspicious-looking men but several people in the crowd attack them. The busy street quickly becomes a bloodbath easily rivalling any that Elizabeth had seen in Emporia.

“There's nothing I can do for these people.” Elizabeth says as she hurries away. The clack-clack-clack of her heels goes unnoticed amidst the pandemonium. “Even if it is my fault that all this is happening.”

“Rapture was never going to survive as long as Ryan thought it would. You remember what you used to say, 'bout constants and variables? Well that's a constant.” 'Booker' tells her.

“I'm in no position to argue.” Elizabeth says. “I just have to get to the Hotel Monseñor and then-”

“And then?” 'Booker' prompts.

“I don't know. But there isn't any use in getting distracted. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Or burn it, if that's what it takes.”

“There's a little of the old spark in you yet, it seems.” 'Booker' observes.

“Huh. I guess you're right.” She heads on into the gathering gloom.

* * *

The Hotel Monseñor is one of the most advertised buildings in the whole city. At first many people are surprised by the notion of a hotel in an isolated community like Rapture. The management is happy to explain, describing it as a getaway for the average Jane or Joe to escape from the troubles of their lives and relax in a new environment. Every floor has a theme: from the sun-soaked Riviera of floor number four (complete with artificial sunlight in every room), to the mysterious jungle setting of floor number eight. Very few people have been heard to complain that about halfway through, the designers began to have difficulty coming up with new themes and resorted to recycling old ones. The rest are too busy trying to reserve rooms on any floor with the artificial sun generators, commissioned from Fontaine Futuristics during that company's meteoric rise.

Tonight the hotel is eerily silent. Despite the lack of a PA system which is currently advising citizens to return to their homes or other residences, word of the Kashmir attack has traveled fast, and the guests have all sealed themselves inside their rooms of their own volition. The staff are hiding in their own quarters as well, so there's no one around to prevent Elizabeth from making her way to floor seven, the first of the gambling floors. Unlike the floors above, this one is strictly card games, with the odds depending on the table. Elizabeth isn't interested in the tables however. She's more interested in what happens backstage. The lock on the door to the cashiers' station is slightly more complex than most of the other locks she's encountered down here; she almost appreciates the challenge before she slips inside and resets the lock. “I very much hope these windows are bullet-proof.” she whispers to herself.

The waiting is the worst part. Elizabeth catches herself drumming her fingertips on the counter, then she catches herself tapping her foot, then she struggles not to pace back and forth until she wears a hole in the floor. “What's taking him so long?” she mutters. “It's not like he has a city to try to conquer or anything.” she adds sarcastically. She takes out the Ace and looks it over again. “Who is this supposed to go to? Who is it meant for?” She feels foolish asking a voice in her head to talk to her, but that's exactly what she does. “I don't suppose you have any...words of wisdom or anything? Booker? I- I could really use some right about now.”

'Booker' doesn't respond. Elizabeth heaves a sigh, and hears footsteps in the corridor. She tenses. Atlas and three other men enter the room. One of them is carrying a blonde-haired girl in a black dress. “There y' are.” Atlas says upon seeing her behind the counter. “Now what's all this about a paper?”

Elizabeth slides the paper under the glass. “Now give me the girl.” she says. “Once I have her, I'll tell you what it says.”

Atlas walks over and takes the paper, giving her a faint glare as he does. Elizabeth gives him as good as she gets. “How the hell d' you even know what this says?” he asks, giving it a once-over.

“Information is extra.” she tells him, folding her arms.

He laughs. “Proper mercenary aren't ya? All roight, here y' go.” He gestures to the man holding Sally.

Elizabeth shakes her head as the man walks over to the gate. “You must think I'm stupid. Tell your man to put her down and back away. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Atlas looks even more displeased, but gives the man a nod. He sets Sally down on the ground and gives her a none-too-friendly nudge with his foot. “Stay put, runt.” he growls.

Elizabeth waits until they've all done as she told them before she unlocks the gate and quickly lets the Little Sister inside. Sally buries her face in Elizabeth's skirt, causing Elizabeth's heart to jump and her hands to tremble as she tries to relock the gate. “I know sweetheart, I know.” she tries to say soothingly, making sure the gate is secure before she rubs the little girl's head with surprising affection.

When she looks up, one of Atlas's goons has a gun pointed at her through the window. “Now what's the damn paper say?” Atlas demands from behind him.

Elizabeth takes a deep breath. “It's encoded in a Vigenère cipher. The keyword is obviously 'Suchong'-”

“What's it **say**?!” Atlas barks.

“Would You Kindly.”

Atlas's face goes blank for a moment, as if he's trying to remember something. Then it resolves itself into a mask of detachment, and he almost sighs, “There we go.” He nods at the goon with the gun. “All right, go ahead.” The goon pulls the trigger. There's a sound like an explosion. The man cries out. The gun falls to the floor. There's a dent in the glass, but not much else. Two more shots ring out. The man turns. Atlas shoots him right between the eyes. “That's better.” he says calmly. “Didn't want anyone else knowin' our little secret.” He looks sharply at Elizabeth. “It _is_ our little secret, isn't it?”

Elizabeth nods. Atlas nods in return and is about to leave when Elizabeth suddenly says, “But-” Atlas turns back, his head tilted to the side just a little. “Aren't- Aren't you going to try and shoot me too?” she asks.

“Why bother? It's bulletproof glass.” He gestures casually. “Just be sure an' watch yer back. There's a war goin' on.” His accent slips just a little with that final sentence, then he's gone.

On trembling legs, Elizabeth falls to the floor. Sally looks at her and Elizabeth strokes her hair reassuringly. “It's all right.” she whispers. “It's over now.”

 


	34. Il Est L'aube D'un Nouveau Jour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title achieved via Google Translate. May not be grammatically correct.

Elizabeth feels guilty for enjoying the unexpected quiet. _I tried to burn you,_ she thinks, looking down on Sally, who appears to be fascinated by Elizabeth's brooch. Sally reaches for it and tries to take it off, but is deterred by the clasp. “You want to wear this?” Elizabeth asks, managing to keep her remorse from her voice.

“No.” Sally chirps. “I just like looking at it.” She has a very matter-of-fact way of talking, which surprises Elizabeth. Somehow she'd gotten it into her head that children must talk the way that most adults talk to them, in that silly high-pitched babble. “It's pretty.” Sally says. “So are you.”

Elizabeth laughs. “Thank you. I think you're pretty too.” She pokes Sally's nose, trying not to imagine what she would have looked like in that vent if the sea slug hadn't been inside her stomach. Speaking of which...

The other Elizabeth appears from the door in the back of the office. “I knew you could do it.” she says with a smile.

“You said you **thought** I could.” Elizabeth retorts.

Sally looks between the two women. “Is she your sister?” she asks.

“I guess she is.” Elizabeth says. “We do have the same parents.”

The other Elizabeth smiles at that. “Did you want me to take her?”

Elizabeth hesitates. She knows she shouldn't but she does anyway. “Will I get to see her again?”

“Do you want to?” the other her says and 'Booker' whispers that she did always think of her powers as a sort of wish fulfillment.

Reluctantly, Elizabeth hands Sally over. Sally seems a little leery, so Elizabeth reassures her, “It's going to be all right.” To her surprise, she finds herself singing. _“'We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again...some sunny day.'”_ Sally breaks into a grin. Like the Cheshire Cat, the smile seems to linger as things shimmer and fade.

* * *

Elizabeth finds herself back in a place she never thought she'd see again. Unlike before, where there had only been the one 'lighthouse' in front of her, she thinks she can see others off in the distance. “I guess this means the possibilities are opening up.” she says to herself.

“And with possibilities...”

She doesn't need to turn to know who is speaking but she does anyway. “Where were you during all of that? Huh? You save me from one madman just so I can die to another??”

“We told you. There are rules.”

“But we obeyed the spirit of the law, as opposed to the letter.”

“Yours was a unique outcome. A unique opportunity. We did not know what would happen until it did.”

“And then we arranged it so that it didn't.”

“If you're going to continue being ungrateful, we may not invest ourselves in your future.”

“Perhaps she's grown tired of our influence.”

“A very human reaction.” A pause. “'That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those... of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know - that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.'”

Elizabeth is relieved when they depart as abruptly as they had come. “I guess the other me is trying to find someplace safe for Sally to stay until...whoever it is shows up. What does that leave me to do?”

“You get to decide what you want.” 'Booker' doesn't seem to be coming from the radio. He's standing by her side, like he'd never left. “But the knowledge I'm representin'...it don't hold true any more. Wherever you go, I can't come with you.”

Elizabeth feels a lump in her throat. “We never really got to say goodbye, did we?”

“Before you drowned me? I don't s'pose we did.”

“I suppose I should thank you, even though- Even though you were never really there.” She really doesn't want to cry, not after all this.

“It's been a pleasure.” 'Booker' says. “Just...answer me one more thing. What are you gonna do with your life?”

Elizabeth looks out. Whatever the sun is in this mindbogglingly metaphysical plane of existence, it's rising. “I'll-” She wipes back tears. “I'll do the best I can.” She doesn't feel him leave so much as imagine it. “Booker...?” She turns, wanting with all her heart to be wrong. But he's gone.

* * *

Beneath the streets of Olympus Heights, Brigid Tenenbaum hurries up the steps of her hideout, hearing a strange noise at the front door and fearing the worst. Instead of a mob of Splicers, she finds a blonde-haired Little Sister looking up at her. A note tucked into her dress reads, in elegant cursive, “Please find a good home for her.”

* * *

Elsewhere in Rapture, Frank Fontaine takes out his frustrations on a couple of Ryan's men. _One day,_ he vows to himself, tossing away a blood-spattered two-by-four as his mask slips again. _One day, it'll be Andrew Ryan himself under these hands._

* * *

Andrew Ryan sits in his office, attempting to deal with the fallout from the attack on the Kashmir. Diane McClintock only briefly enters his mind, as does the mysterious woman in the department store. He resolves to ask Dr Suchong about her later. For now, he has a city to maintain.

* * *

Sander Cohen is asleep. For once his dreams are peaceful ones. He finds himself painting a portrait of Elizabeth, with her usual sullen behavior strikingly absent. He decides then that he'll send out word in the morning that anyone who brings her to him, alive and as unharmed as possible, would be handsomely rewarded. That Possession Plasmid would do wonders for her little moods. He never finds out that she is far beyond his reach.

* * *

Back in the Sea of Doors, Elizabeth catches movement out of the corner of her eye and sees her counterpart coming toward her from the lighthouse. “All done.” she says when she reaches her. “Sally's going to be fine.”

“Thank you.” Elizabeth breathes. Then she frowns as she remembers something from her journey back through the department store. “When I went back to the Toys section, there- My body was missing...”

The other Elizabeth nods solemnly. “Don't worry. I took care of her. I gave her a proper burial, someplace far away from Rapture. It was the least I could do.”

“Do you mind me asking where?” Elizabeth says.

The other her smiles. “Do you have to ask?”

It _had_ to be Paris. That helps Elizabeth make up her mind. “Well then.” She straightens up. “I think I'd like to go to New York if that's all right.”

“Of course.” the other Elizabeth replies. “Do you think you'll need any help getting started?”

“I think I'll be all right.” It's her turn to smile now. As they walk into the sunrise, she finds herself humming a song she’d heard somewhere in Rapture. _I'll make a brand new start of it, in old New York. If I can make it there, I'll make it – anywhere! It's up to you, New York, New York!_


	35. When All Is Done

His shoulders slump. It's over. The little girls (not Little Sisters any more, he has to remind himself; that's how long he's been down here) are waiting for him in the elevator. He looks down at the massive corpse of what used to be both Atlas and Frank Fontaine. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel. He imagines most people would still be angry at Fontaine, but he's not most people. He was whipped up in a half-baked science experiment, as Fontaine had said. He's willing to bet somehow it'll take a long time to get that man's words out of his head.

But the little girls are still waiting. He can't do what he wants to do, which is to dish out a bit of poetic justice and hit Fontaine across the head the way he had been made to do with Ryan, so he nudges him tentatively with his foot, and when the body doesn't move, he drops his wrench besides it and walks over to the elevator, holding the key to Rapture in his Plasmid hand.

* * *

“Mr Comstock? There's someone here to see you.”

“Could you show her in please?”

“Hello Booker.”

“...well, look at you. You look... Well, of course you look older.” He smiles, and Sally laughs. “You look good too. You look beautiful.”

“Thank you. I- I wasn't sure if I should come; there was some television program asking about you-”

“Television program?”

“Truth From Legend, I think it was called, or Fact From Myth. Something like that. But they showed me a picture of you and that woman, and I thought 'Well, it's been almost thirty years, if he was an old man then who knows if he's even still around?' But I did some digging and- Here you are.”

“Here I am.” Comstock laughs. “I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again. She only said it was up to you.”

They're silent for a moment, trying to think of what to say. “Oh, that reminds me!” Sally says. “She left this record for me, said to play it when the time was right. I don't know what she expected me to do with it if I never wanted to see you again, but... I felt like I owed you something, you know? For the longest time I just wanted to forget, and forgetting, well, it doesn't do anyone any good does it? You've got to come to terms with these things or they just keep eating away...” Sally trails off, and abruptly takes a record out of her travelling bag. Comstock examines the cover while she sets the record player up. _Presenting...Elizabeth. Cohen's New Songbird! You Belong To Me, Available In Stores Now!_ He doesn't remember either Cohen or Elizabeth mentioning a musical tutelage, but like Sally had said, for the longest time he'd just wanted to forget.

The record begins to spin. “And now, we've got something very special coming up next. This little lady, who goes by the name of Miss Elizabeth, was picked out of the thousands by the maestro himself, Sander Cohen. And when Sander finds a songbird, you know for sure she's gonna sing sweet. So, here's Miss Elizabeth with 'You Belong to Me'.”

There's a couple seconds of quiet, broken only by the record buzzing and scratching with age, and then... Comstock’s heart stops beating for a moment when he hears her voice again. _“'See the pyramids along the Nile... Watch the sunrise from a tropic isle... Just remember darling, all the while... You Belong to Me...'”_

* * *

“ _Mmm, mmmm mm... I'll live a Riviera Life.”_ And with that, the song that’s coming from the radio ends.

“Is this seat taken?” Elizabeth asks.

The other slender brunette on one of the reclining beach chairs looks up at her. “I don’t think so. I only just got here myself.”

“If they come back I’ll find somewhere else.” Elizabeth tells her as she settles in. “I have to be careful anyway; I haven’t had much experience with the sun.”

The other girl laughs. “Me neither. I was something of a shut-in. Mother’s doing unfortunately.”

“Really? It was my father for me.” Calling Comstock her father still takes some getting used-to, but it’s easier than the truth.

“What a strange coincidence.” the girl remarks. She seems ill at ease, like she’s not sure what to say, so they both go back to tanning.

The next song makes Elizabeth peer over her sunglasses and glare suspiciously at the radio. _Elizabethan Reggae? That’s a little on-the-nose. At least it’s not forty two years ahead of its release date, unlike the last song. Only two…_ Still, these things do tend to happen around her, albeit far less frequently than they had in Rapture or Columbia.

She looks over her shoulder, feeling someone’s eyes upon her. The girl is staring at her. “Have we met?” Elizabeth asks.

“I don’t think so.” she says thoughtfully. “My name’s Eleanor.”

“I’m Elizabeth.”

Eleanor laughs again. “There’s another coincidence. ‘El.’”

“What? Oh, our names!” Elizabeth laughs as well.

Suddenly Eleanor’s expression changes. “You were there.” she whispers. “You were in Rapture.”

Elizabeth looks around quickly to make sure no one else is around. “How do you know that?” she whispers back.

“That’s a long story.” Eleanor says. “We should probably go someplace private.” As she and Elizabeth get up off the deck chairs and head back inside to the resort, Eleanor reflects that it’ll be nice to have someone to talk to who’s not inside her head for once.

* * *

She works as a teacher during the day. At night, she’s a singer at a rather nice night club in Brooklyn, making just enough to get by. One night in 1961, she sees a face in the crowd, and has to look twice to make sure it’s really her.

After her shift is over, she hurries to the table where the little girl is sitting. She’s sure it is Sally, but the little girl hasn’t noticed her yet. She rubs her restored pinky finger nervously, and is about to introduce herself when the man sitting at the table turns and looks at her. Fighting back flashes of a time and place she thought she’d left behind, she extends her right hand, and says, “Hello Jack. It’s nice to meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s the end of In Absentia. It took longer than I would have liked, and took many turns I was not expecting, but I hope you all enjoyed it. There’s a lot of stuff in my BioShock favorites that I would have liked to be able to use, like the SOSUS project and the fortunetelling machines from BioShock 1, and loads of the removed content from BioShock Infinite. The wiki is a very useful source of information, and I spent more time than I probably should’ve on there.
> 
> I won’t make this too much longer. Thank you for reading, and thank you also to MasamuneZERO, who was essentially my beta during this whole ordeal! Ideally, I'd love for people to stumble across this story after playing The Collection when it comes out on Thursday, but then ideally this story wouldn't have to have been written!


End file.
